U.S. CUSTOMS AGENTS GET IN DEEP WITH THAI DRUG LORDS

It was a forbidden friendship that broke a cardinal rule of law enforcement.

Francisco "Frank" Gervacio, a veteran agent with the U.S. Customs Service,
got so close to one of his informants, Michael Woods, that he served as
best man at his wedding. He got drunk with him after hours. And, in the
end, he accepted $4,000 from Woods.

That decision has put Gervacio's career on the line. And now it may be
destroying one of the government's most critical international drug cases:
the indictment of Thanong Siriprechapong, an influential Thai politician
who federal authorities contend is the kingpin of the largest known
marijuana smuggling ring in Southeast Asia.

As Gervacio awaits trial on charges of accepting the $4,000 as an illegal
kickback, his problematic friendship threatens the core of the government's
case -- which was built around his investigation and information that Woods
provided.

Defense lawyers have asked a federal judge to dismiss the case, saying that
the entire investigation is tainted. They contend that Gervacio is
untrustworthy because he accepted the money, and any evidence he provided
is suspect. They suggest that his job pressures, crumbling marriage and
financial woes may have motivated him to exaggerate charges against
Thanong. And even if Gervacio didn't lie, they question whether he reviewed
Woods' information with a critical eye -- important whenever dealing with a
paid informant -- given their close friendship.

"My suspicion is that Gervacio puffed up the evidence," said defense lawyer
Karen Snell, who accuses Gervacio of telling "substantial lies" about
Thanong's ties to the drug ring.

Even though Gervacio was among the agents authorizing payments totaling
$270,000 to Michael Woods for information on the Thai smuggling ring, and
even though Gervacio was the only grand jury witness against Thanong,
federal prosecutors are trying hard to distance the agent from the case.

Gervacio worked on the case along with other agents, says George Hardy,
chief of the U.S. attorney's criminal division in San Francisco. His
testimony before the grand jury was a synopsis of reports from other agents
who can still testify at Thanong's trial. Those agents, Hardy said, will
confirm that Thanong smuggled 40 tons of marijuana into the United States
and received at least $16 million for his efforts.

No one knows whether U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker will dismiss the
controversial case. However, it is clear that Walker has questions about
Gervacio's credibility, and may be angry about the government's handling of
the investigation.

Walker tossed out Gervacio's testimony in an earlier drug case, saying it
wasn't truthful. And, in a scathing ruling last year, Walker criticized the
U.S. attorney's office for keeping Gervacio's admission secret for nine
months.

It is rare for agents to befriend informants, says Bill Anthony, spokesman
for the U.S. Customs Service in Washington, but when they do it raises
problems.

"An agent has to keep his distance from an informant emotionally,
intellectually and physically," he said. "Getting too close can cloud an
agent's judgment and lead to some very bad decisions. They are not in the
business to be friends with informants. Their job is to get information
from them."

Yet it would be unprecedented, prosecutors say, to dismiss such serious
charges against an alleged international drug trafficker, charges that
followed a 10-year investigation and historic extradition. It was the first
time the Thai government ever shipped one of its citizens to the United
States for trial.

To this day, Gervacio denies he did anything wrong. Indeed, his lawyer John
Jordan blames the U.S. Customs Service for much of what has happened.

Court records and interviews with lawyers involved in the case paint a
portrait of a troubled career agent and an agency that may have ignored
early signs that the agent was crossing the thin line between those who
enforce the law and those who break it.

Gervacio, 42, joined the Customs Service in 1983 after nine years with a
variety of government agencies. He was soon promoted to special agent, a
job involving high-risk work as an undercover investigator.

Woods, a small-time drug dealer who claimed ties to big-time smugglers, had
been arrested in 1976 for marijuana possession in Oregon. By 1987, he had
signed up in Reno as an informant with the Customs Service and the Drug
Enforcement Agency.

The two men met in the late 1980s, just as Gervacio was beginning his
covert work. They worked together on a number of undercover cases involving
alleged West Coast dealers who imported their pot from Thailand. Through
those cases, they began to gather the first bits of evidence that a member
of the Thai parliament, a powerful businessman named Thanong
Siriprechapong, had been shipping tons of Southeast Asian marijuana to
ports up and down the West Coast, including San Francisco, since the 1970s.

Together they began homing in on Thanong by day, spending evenings over drinks.

In 1989, the two men went out in San Francisco to celebrate a $15,000
payment the agent had secured for Woods for information, according to
Internal Affairs documents obtained by defense lawyers for Thanong. Driving
away from a bar at 1 a.m., they were stopped by police, and Gervacio was
cited for driving a government car under the influence of alcohol. Gervacio
told the officer he was a customs agent "on duty" and that Woods was his
confidential informant. Gervacio said "that he was taking him to buy a
truck," the report said.

Later that year, the men had grown so close that Woods asked Gervacio to be
his best man at his wedding.

While Gervacio's friendship with Woods was growing deeper, his marriage was
crumbling. In a March 20, 1997, Solano County court filing, Cheryl Gervacio
complained her husband "abuses alcohol and becomes violent." Though his
annual salary was $85,000, he complained of financial troubles.

Woods knew of his problems. And the informant, who earned $270,000 from
1987 to 1993 for his underworld tips, had money to share.

Once Woods gave Gervacio a pair of running shoes. Then, in August 1992,
Gervacio asked Woods for $4,000, according to his attorney.

Soon after, Gervacio found an envelope in his car containing $4,000 in
cash. He knew the money was left by Woods, according to court records. He
didn't report the incident to his bosses.

Gervacio contends his bosses knew the stress of undercover work was driving
him to alcoholism. And they knew he and Woods were close friends. The 1989
stop for drunken driving should have raised a red flag, and it was reported
to his superiors. Often, law enforcement agencies reassign agents when they
see signs that agents are getting too close to informants. Yet, the U.S.
Customs Service continued to allow Gervacio to work with Woods.

"It is not a happy fact for the government that he did this," Hardy said.
"If he's convicted (of accepting an illegal gratuity) it's absolutely
reprehensible conduct. But we did not know about it until years after the
fact."

It wasn't until 1996, when the Thanong case was scheduled for trial before
Judge Walker, that Gervacio began to worry about the $4,000 "gift." The
agent wanted to make sure his acceptance of cash wouldn't jeopardize the
Thanong case, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney John Lyons.

"He did not want Mr. Thanong basically to escape because this might somehow
come to light," Lyons said.

By then, his lawyer says, Gervacio's "reasoning was so distorted he was on
the brink of suicide."

His superiors and the U.S. attorney's office kept his admission to
themselves for nine months. Then, last year, prosecutors told the judge,
but argued it should be kept from the public. Disagreeing, Walker made
Gervacio's admission public and blasted the prosecutors for waiting so long
to reveal it.

The forbidden friendship has tarnished one of the federal government's most
spectacular international drug cases.

Never before had a Thai citizen been extradited to this country. Thanong's
January 1996 extradition rocked the Thai parliament, sparked protests and
required the majority vote of 83 Thai appellate judges.

Authorities say the stocky, soft-spoken businessman led a double life. He
was a philanthropist who donated money to repair schools, roads and
hospitals. And, authorities allege, he was also a well-known international
drug trafficker known to narcotics agents as "Thai Tony."

Prosecutors allege he arranged the smuggling of tons of marijuana aboard
cargo containers from the Golden Triangle -- the rugged area where the
borders of Burma, Laos and Thailand meet -- to San Francisco, Long Beach,
San Diego and other West Coast ports. Usually he imported the drug in
crates marked as common goods such as restaurant glassware. Prosecutors say
these loads have arrived at West Coast ports since the late 1970s.

Prosecutors say Thanong laundered drug profits through his extensive
businesses in Thailand, and bought a $1 million Beverly Hills mansion and
$51,000 Mercedes-Benz, which U.S. agents have seized.

In his grand jury testimony, Gervacio said Thanong and five co-conspirators
began their smuggling ring in 1973, showing an ongoing criminal conspiracy
spanning nearly two decades. Prosecutors now reluctantly conceded that they
do not have enough evidence to support that statement.

Furthermore, Gervacio's testimony contradicts at least two prosecution
witnesses in the case: one convicted smuggler who says he never told
Gervacio that Thanong was his supplier, and another who denies any
knowledge of Thanong having a method of transporting marijuana to the
United States.

Today the 45-year-old business tycoon spends his time in federal prison in
Dublin poring through stacks of government documents, translating them with
his Thai-English dictionary. His business empire -- including hotels,
resort property and a travel agency worth an estimated $160 million -- is
now being run by his sister.

Walker is expected to rule on Thanong's request to dismiss the case in the
next few months. If the charges are not dismissed, a trial could begin late
this year. Without question, Frank Gervacio will not be there to testify.
He is free on bail, awaiting his own federal trial on felony charges of
accepting an illegal gratuity.

)1998 San Francisco Examiner