The DEA forked over $25,000 so the Africans could by a truck. The Africans then tried to demand another $15,000 for outfitting the truck, and to prove they really bought one, showed the DEA informants a cell phone photo of a truck and gave them what they said was a key to a truck. Then the Africans increased the transport price from $2,000 a kilo to $10,000 a kilo, demanded $75,000 euros as down payment on the transport (instead of the agreed upon 10% or $15,000 euros) and the deal began to fall apart.
One of the African men said he is the head of a militia. The militia's size: 11 men.
The e-mails are laughable. The DEA informant writes to the African, addressing him by his real first name, refers to the Colombians, the need to protect the merchandise, writes that once the passport is completed, he'll pay him separately for the drivers' license and ID card he'll need to go with it -- and then writes:
The load will be ready and that's why we have to study well the route.
"The load?" What drug trafficker would use that phrase in an e-mail?
The DEA used two informants. The first began working for the DEA five months ago, in July, 2009. In August, he told them about Oumar, one of the Africans. In September, the DEA sent him to Ghana to meet with Oumar. By October, it must have been clear he needed help, because the DEA sent in the second informant (who began his DEA informant career in 2000 as a cooperating witness, working off his own misdeeds, and later then became a paid informant.)
So the DEA gave the Africans $25,000., sent two informants and who knows how many agents to Africa, to pretend they were going to ship cocaine to Ghana, which the Africans believed they would transport to Spain. It was all make-believe. There were no drugs. There was no FARC involvement. The Africans never even showed the truck they claimed to have purchased, just a cell phone photo of one and a key.
Maybe the Africans really were drug transporters. Maybe they really even knew some people in al-Qaida. Or maybe they were playing the neophyte informant and his supporting cast, intending to rip them off.
In any event, why we have to fly these three men from Ghana to the U.S. for trial (and pay for their prosecution and defense)in a case where no drug deal transpired or would have transpired and the make-believe drugs were supposedly going to Spain, not the U.S., makes no sense to me. According to the U.S. Attorney's press release:
The defendants each are charged with one count of narco-terrorism conspiracy, which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years and a maximum sentence of life in prison,
and one count of conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, which carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.
How much will it cost to incarcerate these men if they get 20 year sentences? How much did the DEA spend on this venture? Is this what we're going to get with the $30 million Congress gave the DEA to fight narco-terrorism?
