DRUG TRAFFICKERS' ACHILLES HEEL

As a former intelligence analyst for the Drug Enforcement Administration
specializing in Mexican drug-money laundering methods and groups, I am
responding to Holman W. Jenkins Jr.'s Jan. 27 Business World column
"Washington Looks for Money Launderers Where They Aren't."

Mr. Jenkins claims the U.S. government "was already in possession of, and
resolutely ignoring, intelligence linking him [Raul Salinas] to drug
money." I would be interested in knowing who possessed this information.
Following the capture of Raul Salinas's paramour, Paulina Castanon, by
Swiss authorities, after she tried to remove $80 million from accounts
owned by Raul Salinas, the Swiss notified U.S. authorities, believing the
money was tied to drug trafficking. The DEA was initially handed the
investigation, and we scoured our vast intelligence indices and case files
for any definitive link between Mr. Salinas and drug trafficking.
Establishing such a "drug nexus" was critical to the continued detention by
Swiss authorities of Ms. Castanon, and to charging Mr. Salinas with money
laundering. Despite a thorough review, and to our dismay, we were unable to
establish such a link. Money laundering is an exceedingly difficult charge
to substantiate when suspected illicit funds cannot be directly connected
to an underlying "specified unlawful activity," as U.S. law requires.

Letters intended for publication in the print edition of the Journal can be
e-mailed to: letter.editor@edit.wsj.com. All letters are subject to
abridgment. For more reader responses, see Voices.

Mr. Jenkins also contends that Juan Garcia-Abrego was Mexico's biggest drug
dealer. Is he perhaps referring to his physical stature? Mr. Garcia's
contemporary, the late Amado Carrillo-Fuentes, was by far Mexico's most
powerful drug baron.

Mr. Jenkins's argument that the "know your customer" regulations
promulgated by the Federal Reserve are "intrusive and overbearing" fails to
recognize that the financial apparatus of international drug trafficking
organizations is their most vulnerable component. The only way to seriously
affect this mega-billion-dollar industry (with revenues believed to exceed
$100 billion annually) is to target its Achilles Heel: disposing of massive
quantities of cash into the global financial system. Identifying and
seizing accounts of drug traffickers and their other assets, as well as
their financial documents, freezes up these organizations, as it would any
legitimate corporation's.

If Mr. Jenkins has a better solution to addressing the drug trafficking
behemoth, many policymakers in Washington would love to hear it.

William F. Marshall
Fairfax, Va.