DEA Seeks Private Guards To Protect Traveling Tonnage of Pot

Stephen Peacock writes:

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is recruiting private security forces to load, transport and unload "multi-ton" shipments of seized marijuana en route to destruction in Arizona. It's conducting what is known as a "sources sought" inquiry to determine the availability of commercial firms that can provide on-call deployments of armed contractors to protect these bulk transports of pot.

"The work to be performed will be the loading of multi-ton quantities of marijuana at a secure site, providing protection and security enroute to the destruction facility, offloading multi-ton quantities of marijuana at the destruction facility, and providing security until all the marijuana is destroyed," the sources-sought notice said.

A move to the use of private contractors for hauling and burning seized dope shipments would be a change of direction for DEA, according to law enforcement sources who spoke with Narco News on background.

Normally, these dope-burning runs are overseen by a group of DEA agents, up to a dozen, the sources say.

“They would send in an 18-wheeler and have a caravan to Phoenix (the burn site),” explains one law enforcer. “If they’ve moved to using private contractors, then it’s a new policy.”

The law enforcer stresses that the private contractors would still have to be overseen by DEA agents to some extent, “but instead of 12 DEA agents, it sounds like they might now have 10 rent-a-cops and two DEA agents.”

The privatizing of these drug runs, however, is of great concern, the law enforcement sources say. Private contractors, they contend, have a history of cutting corners to save a buck. As a result, “it’s proven that criminals slip through the (hiring) process,” one law enforcer explains.

Another problem, the law enforcer adds, is the fact that the contract was put out to bid publicly by the government with so much detail.

Stephen writes of the bid:

The document, which was added to the federal Electronic Posting System database on Thursday (Aug. 11), said that initial security "runs" of the cannabis shipments will take place in and around Tuscon, Ariz., as well as between Tuscon and "Nogales and/or Sierra Vista, Arizona." Future locations may include "Yuma and/or Phoenix," it added.
DEA and its private security agents will transport the marijuana tonnage "on an irregular basis, and will not be scheduled more than a few days in advance," it said. "Runs may be needed as often as once a week, but the interval between runs may be much longer."

DEA will provide a vehicle to transport the marijuana, but requires contractors to provide their own "security/follow vehicle capable of carrying four people, including the driver."

The bureaucratic boneheads who decided to put out the bid don’t seem to have considered that there is enough detail in the notice to tell "bad guys exactly what they need to do to infiltrate or stage a robbery of a shipment,” a law enforcement source stresses.

“They might save a buck by going to private contractors … but there is bound to be a scandal down the road,” the law enforcer adds.

More boneheads

And it appears the DEA is not the only law enforcement agency looking to save a buck.

Several law enforcement sources with the Department of Homeland Security confirmed to Narco News that the U.S. Border Patrol, which is part of the DHS, uses private contractors to do background checks on its prospective hires.

And here’s an example of the bang-up job that privatization effort has produced:

From a story in the San Diego Union-Tribune:

Border agent said to also be smuggler

A Mexican man who used a fake U.S. birth certificate to get into the Border Patrol was helping to smuggle illegal immigrants, authorities said yesterday.

Oscar Antonio Ortiz, 28, an El Cajon-based Border Patrol agent on administrative leave, was arrested yesterday and charged in San Diego federal court with falsely claiming to be a U.S. citizen.

He also is charged with conspiring with another Border Patrol agent to smuggle immigrants and is scheduled to be arraigned in U.S. District Court this morning.

There is no indication in court records that the other agent, who was not identified, has been arrested.

... The idea that someone could be hired to guard the border by using false citizenship documents is "mind-boggling," said T.J. Bonner, the San Diego-based president of the National Border Patrol Council.

"I would think that would be the very first thing they would check," Bonner said.

Background checks for Border Patrol agents were once done by the FBI, Bonner said. For several years, though, subcontractors have been doing them, he said. (emphasis added)

But he puts more of the blame for such security breaches on what he considers rushed hiring.

"These background checks are allowed to just poke along while the person is hired," Bonner said. "They are rushed to get that warm body on board, and they neglect to thoroughly conduct a background check."

Former local union president Joe Dassaro said he thinks subcontracting is a problem.

"They deal in quantity, not quality," said Dassaro, now a labor relations consultant. "By the nature of their contract they need to get people into the Border Patrol, not keep people out."

More evidence of the potential problems with using private contractors in the war on drugs surfaces in a story that appeared today in the Pittsburg Tribune-Review.

Authorities are trying to determine whether a contractor hired by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration violated state environmental laws by improperly disposing of toxic waste seized from a methamphetamine lab, the Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office said Friday.

DEA agents, police, firefighters and hazardous materials crews surrounded the firm's warehouse in Windgap for several hours Wednesday until the Attorney General's Office secured a warrant to search 15 black garbage bags they found in a Dumpster at the Windgap Industrial Park.

The firm, Nashville-based Ferguson Harbour, denied any wrongdoing yesterday.

... The DEA uses Ferguson Harbour's warehouse to dispose of waste from dismantled meth labs from across the Midwest and East Coast, Pittsburgh Hazardous Materials Unit Chief Russell Young said Wednesday.

Law enforcement sources told Narco News that seized marijuana also is taken to private facilities for incineration, but stress that DEA agents handle the transportation and security for those operations.

The DEA's recent announcement that it is now seeking commercial firms to "load, transport and unload 'multi-ton' shipments of seized marijuana en route to destruction" is not only a change of policy for DEA, as law enforcement sources point out, but it takes the drug-war privatization push to a whole new level that promises to bring us even more scandals down the road.

More from the Tribune-Review:

... The chemicals used to make methamphetamine are combustible when mixed together and also can cause pollution if they seep into the ground.

Wow!  Hey, do you know if there's going to be a competitive bidding process on this?  Because I'm totally confident that I can get a few guys together who would be more than happy to do it for free.  My '91 Civic security/follow vehicle still gets great mileage and seats four comfortably, plus, the stereo works great!  It's sounds especially good cranking up the Floyd when you're hotboxing with all the windows rolled up.  Heck, we could even take over the incineration process, saving the taxpayers millions!  I already have a small incineration operation going - just maybe a quarter-ounce a month (hey, I'm not in my twenties anymore, okay?), but with a little networking, I envision a national "incineration co-op" really taking off!