My Washington Times Piece On Why Drug Cartels Should Be Designated Terrorist Organizations

The Washington Times ran my piece on designating Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organization.

In an interview with Bill O’Reilly, President Trump stated that he planned to designate the Mexican drug cartels as terrorist organizations.

His comment was in response to the brutal murder of nine American citizens in Mexico last month. The murder victims included women and children. 

“A wonderful family and friends from Utah got caught between two vicious drug cartels, who were shooting at each other, with the result being many great American people killed, including young children, and some missing,” Mr. Trump tweeted following the murders. 

“If Mexico needs or requests help in cleaning out these monsters, the United States stands ready, willing & able to get involved and do the job quickly and effectively. The great new President of Mexico has made this a big issue, but the cartels have become so large and powerful that you sometimes need an army to defeat an army!”

Retired Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) official Jack Riley, the author of “Drug Warrior: Inside the Hunt for El Chapo and the Rise of the Opioid Crisis,” approved of Mr. Trump’s idea of designating the cartels as terrorists.     

“This is something that myself and others have been advocating for a number of years. I think I even discussed this during my congressional testimony in 2016,” Mr. Riley said in an interview on NPR.

“I think it’s a game changer. Clearly, the cartels, with their financial backing and the death and misery that they’ve caused both in Mexico and United States, at least in my opinion, meet the threshold as a terrorist organization. And I think this shows real leadership on the part of the president. I commend him. And I hope we can get it done because it’s a game changer.”

Last week I spoke to Javier Pena and Steve Murphy, the two retired DEA special agents who took down Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, and they too supported the idea of designing the cartels as terrorists.

“They are terrorist organizations to me. They’re killing, they’re corrupting, and they’re intimidating.” Mr. Pena said. “We see the violence, such as the recent massacres in Mexico. If we name them terrorist organizations, maybe we’ll get a lot more support from a lot of other people.”

You can read the rest of the piece below or via the below link:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/dec/26/why-drug-cartels-should-be-designated-terrorist-or/ 

My Washington Times Review Of 'Drug Warrior: Inside The Hunt For El Chapo And The Rise Of America's Opioid Crisis'

The Washington Times published my review of former DEA special agent Jack Riley's Drug Warrior: Inside the Hunt for El Chapo and the Rise of the Opioid Crisis.

Mexican drug lord Joaqun “El Chapo’ Guzman, once the world’s most wanted man, was convicted of drug trafficking charges last month in New York and he will be sentenced this coming June.

Guzman will perhaps become an inmate of the “Supermax” federal prison in Florence, Colorado. Guzman, who previously escaped not once, but twice, from Mexican high-security prisons, will have little chance to escape from this prison. He’ll probably spend the rest of his life, 23 hours a day, in a 7-by-12-foot cell.

And so ends the saga of the infamous criminal.

Retired Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Special Agent Jack Riley offers a look back at his career and his three-decade long pursuit of Guzman in “Drug Warrior: Inside the Hunt for El Chapo and the Rise of the Opioid Crisis.”

Mr. Riley, the grandson of a tough Chicago cop, tells of his life from a young DEA special agent working undercover on the streets of Chicago to the highest levels in American law enforcement. He served as the special agent in charge (SAC) of the El Paso Field Division and served as the first director of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. A Chicago native, he went on to serves as the SAC of the Chicago Field Division and was later promoted to be the DEA’s chief of operations, the third-ranking position in the DEA. His last position was as deputy administrator, the number two spot in the DEA. He retired as the DEA’s highest-ranking special agent in 2016.

The book is mostly about Mr. Riley’s efforts to capture Guzman and smash his Sinaloa drug cartel. He calls Guzman a sociopath and a mass murderer but concedes that he was also a brilliant and innovative CEO of his illegal drug empire. He notes that Guzman recognized the growing abuse of prescription drugs in the United States long before law enforcement officials did. Mr. Riley called Guzman a marketing and logistical genius, a ruthless businessman, a born smuggler, and truly evil. He recalls how Guzman made it very personal by placing a bounty on the DEA boss’ head.

You can read the rest of the review via the below link:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2019/mar/10/book-review-drug-warrior-by-jack-riley-with-mitch-/