From reputed Jamaican drug lord Christopher Coke to notorious Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan has become aggressively global, indicting international figures from around the world, the New York Times reports.
Since 2004, the Times’ Ben Weiser reports that the office has sent prosecutors to 25-plus countries “as part of investigations that have brought back dozens of suspected arms and narcotics traffickers and terrorists to Manhattan to face charges. And some of them have involved stings like the one that snared Mr. Bout.”
The paper reported that some other U.S. Attorney’s Offices like the one in Alexandria, Va., have also built international cases, but none appear to have done so in similar number or variety as the New York office.
“I think they are pursuing more kinds of international cases, with a deliberateness that’s new,” ex-N.Y. U.S. Attorney Mary Jo White told the Times.
The current U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, who was appointed to his post in 2009, told the Times that it has become necessary in the post-911 era.
“As crime has gone global and national security threats are global,” he said, “in my view the long arm of the law has to get even longer. We can’t wait until bombs are going off.”
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