By Allan Lengel
ticklethewire.com
DETROIT — In 2011, Kent Kleinschmidt, an agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration, headed an enforcement group in the Detroit office that was investigating ties between a local drug organization and the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico led by the notorious Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.
The case eventually lead to some serious seizures of cocaine and money and the arrest in October 2011 of Leo Sharp, an 87-year-old “mule” caught transporting 104 kilos of cocaine from Arizona to Michigan for the cartel. Michigan State Police, at the direction of the DEA, pulled over Sharp on I-94 in Washtenaw County and arrested him. Kleinschmidt was nearby watching.
Sharp was sentenced in Detroit to three years in prison. He got out early because of a terminal illness and died Dec. 12, 2016 at 92.
Now Sharp is the subject of a Clint Eastwood film, “The Mule.” (See the trailer.)
Kleinschmidt, an assistant special agent in charge of the Detroit DEA, talked about the film on Thursday, a day before the national debut.
