(dea photo) By Allan Lengel For AOL News In the eyes of Russian officials, Viktor Bout is an innocent businessman being railroaded — quite contrary to the American view that he’s a cunning and dangerous arms dealer worthy of the moniker “Merchant of Death.” Clad in black T-shirt and black sweat pants, Bout briefly appeared…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com WASHINGTON — Many may say it’s long long overdue. The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing next week for Michele Leonhart, who was nominated to head the DEA on Feb. 2, according to the website Main Justice. Leonhart has been heading the agency on an interim basis since…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com WASHINGTON –– A Justice Department’s Inspector General report released Tuesday sharply criticized ATF’s efforts to crackdown on gun trafficking along the Mexican border, saying the agency is failing to share information within and outside the agency and with Mexico and is focusing far too much on smaller rather than bigger gun…
By GINGER THOMPSON, ERIC SCHMITT and SOUAD MEKHENNET New York Times WASHINGTON — American authorities sent David C. Headley, a small-time drug dealer and sometime informant, to work for them in Pakistan months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, despite a warning that he sympathized with radical Islamic groups, according to court records and interviews….
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com Federal authorities on Wednesday discovered a 600-yard long tunnel with lighting and ventilation that went from Tijuana to California that was used to smuggle marijuana, the New York Times reported. DEA and ICE officials said they found about 30 tons of marijuana in the Otay Mesa section of San Diego,the Times…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chair of the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, renewed her call Monday for the State Department to cough up more helicopters for the DEA in Afghanistan. The public call comes in wake of last week’s major airborne drug raid that netted more than…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com A DEA agent got a little more than she bargained for when she went to the firing range in Los Angeles County. The agent was shot and wounded in the hip after her gun accidentally discharged during a firearms training exercise on Sept. 28 at the DEA-authorized weapons range at the…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com WASHINGTON — President Obama is a busy guy with a lot of worries. So he might be excused when he commits a little Washington faux pas as he did during a town hall meeting last week with young people. While discussing “federal drug enforcement”, he mentioned the Justice Department and FBI,…
