ANTI-DRUG OPERATION QUESTIONED

DEA Acknowledges Arrest Discrepancies, Calls Effort A Success

MIAMI ­ A 36-nation anti-drug operation that the Drug Enforcement
Administration hails as a major success counted nearly 1,000 misdemeanor
marijuana arrests among its totals and could not account for several
hundred other arrests, according to a published report Thursday.

The investigation of last fall's "Operation Libertador" also found some
numbers on the burning of marijuana plants were double-counts of a nearly
20-year-old State Department program, according to the report by Knight
Ridder's Washington bureau.

And, while the DEA said that $30.2 million in criminal assets were seized
during the operation, $30 million of that was taken four weeks before the
operation started, according to the report, which was published in The
Miami Herald.

Michael Vigil, former chief of the DEA's regional office in San Juan,
Puerto Rico, headed the operation that was touted as a "major takedown" of
drug traffickers in the Caribbean and Latin America. He acknowledged
discrepancies in names and numbers but called the exercise a "tremendous
success."

"The key here is that we have 36 countries that put aside cultural,
political and economic differences to come together," said Mr. Vigil, the
DEA's head of international enforcement.

The exercise reported 2,876 arrests, but the DEA could not account for 375
of those, according to the article. The agency also accepted whatever
numbers reported by the participating countries, according to the article.
The numbers also were skewed because 996 arrests reported in Jamaica were
for misdemeanor marijuana possession, and most of the defendants were fined
and released.

DEA spokesman Michael Chapman said the agency found no problems with the
operation, which began Oct. 27 and ended Nov. 19. It included major Latin
American and Caribbean drug-trafficking countries such as Colombia, Bolivia
and Haiti.