I had never driven as fast on snow and ice as I was at that moment, but hundreds of pounds of marijuana were about to disappear and I wasn’t going to let that happen.
State Troopers in the Ozark’s had intercepted a vehicle loaded with weed that was destined for my home town.
The driver of the vehicle, a “mule” who had no larger part to play than driving drugs across America for a fee, agreed to cooperate with the Troopers and continue the journey to deliver the marijuana to its destination.
From that point on everything was highly controlled as the mule was under arrest, but was still needed to facilitate the handover of the drugs to the recipient. Why would the mule do this you ask? For reduced sentencing and leniency.
In cases such as these the mule usually has nothing more than a contact phone number for the buyer and therefore has very little information about who will be receiving the package.
Due to the vast distance between the Ozark’s and the Great Lakes, the Troopers contacted the local police department for assistance with their case. You can’t deliver nearly 1/4 ton of marijuana to someone else’s jurisdiction without their knowledge and assistance.
At this point in my career I was working as a Task Force Officer for the Drug Enforcement Agency and the local police asked for my help with the delivery.
I was still employed by the local department, but I was assigned to the DEA and followed all of their rules and regulations. I also had all of the DEA’s resources and reach available to me.
So here I was, driving 90 to 100mph in an Infiniti SUV that had been seized from a madame who had operated a “massage parlor”, over snow and ice covered roads in the middle of nowhere.
The exchange between the mule and the target had taken place at a truck stop and my supervisor had “the eye” on the suspect’s vehicle.
Typically, when you have illegal drugs in your car you obey all the traffic laws in order to avoid the attention of the police, especially when you have hundreds of pounds of illegal drugs in your car.
However, the suspect in this case took off like he had just robbed a bank and my supervisor, a southern gentleman who spent most of his career with the DEA in Columbia and wasn’t familiar with snow and ice, was letting him get away.
I flew passed my supervisor at what felt like the speed of sound and was able to keep the suspect in sight on the straight stretch of country road.
Having grown up in the Midwest I learned to drive in harsh conditions and had no fear of loosing control, although the State Trooper who was in my passenger seat felt somewhat differently about the situation.
Eventually the target arrived at his destination and we were able to watch him pull into his garage and close the door.
Not long after arriving at his house the suspect abruptly left. Again, driving like a madman. He found the surveillance devices we had hidden in the marijuana and he knew he was in trouble.
When our uniformed back-up officers pulled him over he had a lot of cash and several guns in the car. Guns and drugs are a huge problem for suspects when it comes to being sentenced by the Federal government. There are minimum, mandatory sentences that apply and the only way to avoid them is by becoming a snitch.
There was no way I could have known at the time, but the road this newly created informant would lead me down would take us to Mexico and generate Indiana’s first ever CPOT linked case.
A CPOT, or Consolidated Priority Organization Target, is a designation saved for the United States most wanted drug traffickers and money launderers. These are the people in the sights of every Federal agency and whose arrest would lead to the dismantling of the most massive networks.
It just so happened that the people my informant was purchasing marijuana from worked directly for Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the most notorious and powerful drug dealer since Pablor Escobar.
For various reasons I can’t describe the case any further, but I can tell you about the fallout.
When a case becomes labeled CPOT, the flood gates of funding and resources open up and all the dreams of an investigator begin to come true. This is because a CPOT designation isn’t easy to obtain. It must be vetted by all of the agencies you hear about on tv and in the movies. And it must be confirmed that your target is unquestionably one of the names on the CPOT list.
Unfortunately, my case touched multiple DEA Field Divisions and everyone wanted to stake their claim. Funding is very important to each Field Division and whoever had control of the case would get the funding.
Eventually, it became almost impossible to get work done. Doors were closed in my face and the informant became a lame duck due to restrictions that kept getting cast upon us.
I suppose I am an idealist and didn’t care who was in charge or who was getting funded. I wanted to work my case and catch the bad guys, even if they were located in Mexico.
The DEA saw it differently though and ordered me to hand my case over to agents in the Chicago Field Division.
I’m not actually certain what happened with the case. I quit the DEA a short time later out of sheer frustration. My informant ended up getting charged for the guns and marijuana we caught him with and was sent to prison for several years.
My target in Mexico was gunned down by the Federales at some point and El Chapo was captured, twice, and is now spending his days in a Super Max prison here in the US.
Nothing really went the way I hoped it would, but the Special Agent In Charge of the Chicago Field Division did pay me a visit and took me, and the rest of the team, out for Oley’s Pizza.
After his release from prison the informant looked me up and became a client of mine. Every now and then we’ll grab a drink and talk about how the case changed his life. After his release from prison he started a business and is now very successful and completely out of the drug game.