NARCS, Undercovers, Informants... oh my!!

In their quest to trample tokers and catch cannabis “criminals”, the police often become criminals themselves. Thankfully, even though they’ve been given extraordinary powers to wipe out weed – including carjacking, false inhaling, hypochondria, smuggling rings, money laundering schemes, and setting up faux doctors’ offices and hydroponics stores – they’re still unable to yank even a smidgen of the stone on the street. By breaking a fundamental premise in law, that no persons (including the police!) are above it, The Man has demonstrated they’ll slink to spectacular scummy levels in an effort to control society to their whims.

“In a democratic society there is a fundamental principle that all people regardless of position must obey the law,” explains Alexi Wood, director of Canadian Civil Liberties Association. “Allowing law enforcement officers to ignore the very laws they are sworn to protect must always be seen as an extraordinary act.”

Indeed, a small group of individuals above the law is not a democracy, but a totalitarian society ruled by the iron fist of those apparently acting for the good of the people. The definition of police power, according to the Dictionary of American Government and Politics, is rather disturbing: “Police power goes far beyond the criminal justice system; it is the legal basis by which governments regulate public health, safety and morals.”

Prohibitionists concede that to catch cannabis criminals, cops need to engage in sundry stoner shenanigans to fool us into believing the narc is one of our own. The public naively allows their freedoms to be curtailed because they’ve been told it’ll stop cannabis from entering playgrounds and suburban gated-communities. “I represent a solid group of citizens in this country who put their total faith and trust in the police,” remarked Canadian elected Conservative Member of Parliament Myron Thompson, chair of Canada’s Human Rights and Justice Committee. “As to the faith in politicians who are supposed to make the laws, well, that would be the last place I’d put my faith.” And he’s a politician!

Narcs Gone Hog Wild

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) founder and ex-police officer Jack Cole spent two years infiltrating a Boston biker gang, putting his life at risk every time he went to work. After recognizing that drugs continued to flood the market despite his best efforts, Cole took the brave step of coming out for the legalization of all drugs. “I don’t think [police] should do undercover,” he says. “The safety that is supposed to be in place… well, someone can just take a gun out. It ends up getting a lot of police in trouble. I hate the idea of undercover,” Cole says. He cites Tulia, Texas as a prime example of out-of-control undercover operations, but even he has trouble keeping track of all the cases of undercover police work gone awry. In fact, there are so many corrupt cop stories that the Drug Reform Coordination Network (DRC.net) regularly lists only the ten worst of the worst stories for their weekly email newsletters. As you can imagine, there must be a lot of bad cops out there!

Tulia is in north Texas, in the panhandle, with an affluent white population, and a less affluent black population. Tulia’s Sheriff’s Department hired a roving part-time law enforcement officer who had been fired from previous police jobs – Tom Coleman. In 1999, Coleman went undercover to catch drug dealers. During the operation, Coleman used unconventional methods to compile evidence. He didn’t wear a wire to tape any of the alleged drug deals, he never took fingerprints, and he worked completely alone. The only evidence that the drug deals took place were the bags of drugs he purported to have bought (which contained minute quantities), notes he had written on his arms and legs (which were long gone), and his word of honor – as far as that went. Nevertheless, after he was done, 46 people were arrested: 38 were black, one was Hispanic, and seven were white with ties to the black community. One defendant proved he was working at his job at the time of the alleged deals and another was living in Oklahoma City at the time, yet Caucasian juries handed out severe sentences to the black defendants based solely on Coleman’s testimony and the white community heralded Coleman and made him “Lawman of the Year”. The “Tulia 46”, most of whom received extremely harsh sentences ranging from three to 434 years in prison and averaging 10 years per accused, have since all been redeemed and won a civil litigation suit against the sheriff’s department.

Another cop who played dirty pool is Wisconsin undercover agent Mario Altuzar. When Altuzar arrived in a small community of Washington County, drug use seemed to go up 2,000 percent – especially amongst the Hispanic population. “He appeared to be a seasoned pothead who used a simulation technique taught to undercover officers,” wrote Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist Mike Nichol. When Altuzar smoked pot outside the bars of Washington County, he even ‘French inhaled’ – that is, breathed in through his nose the smoke he blew out his mouth. Those with him were absolutely convinced he was getting high, so convinced that they let down their guard only to be ensnared in what Washington County Sheriff Brian Rahn now calls Altuzar’s “phenomenal accomplishment.”

Defense lawyer John Birdsall told Cannabis Culture, “I’m not buying the simulation technique – that’s just silly. It’s pretty hard to prove or disprove, but the cops win that argument every time.” Birdsall represented some of the people ensnared by Altuzar, a narc who constantly stumbled out of bars drunk and made purchases of everything from weed to coke. In court it was revealed he even had sex with female pot dealers during some buys, definitely one of the few no-nos in undercover work.

Working with very little oversight can cause serious problems, explains LEAP’s founder Cole. It can create lone cowboys like Tom Coleman and Mario Altuzar who get very, very carried way. Cole says the undercover officer must document everything – which includes wearing a wire, making extensive notes (not on their arms and legs, but in notebooks), and using a micro camera – as their testimony must be very concise. Cole’s favorite tool of the trade was the Mica camera. “They were pretty amazing. I had a hollowed out paperback book on the dashboard and kept money underneath. You’d see someone selling dope on the street, pull up, lift the book on the dashboard to get the money and take their picture by squeezing the book while handing them the money.”

Would your joint circle friends notice if you knocked off the cherry or heater from the end of a joint and pocketed the roach? That’s something Cole did hundreds of times to collect evidence. Wouldn’t anyone notice that kind of move? “Come on, people are getting stoned. They’re interested in the high,” he laughs. “You don’t do it the first time the joint goes around. But others wouldn’t notice at the end, because they’re high. And if someone does see, you just say, ‘I got
a little greedy, sorry – wanted to take some home for later.’ Worked for me
every time.”

Cole has even done a fake shoot up, twice! How do people not notice the trick? “I let the other person go first, and they didn’t see me shooting into an opaque tube because they were already high.” He explains undercover cops are “a combination of con artist and sleight-of-hand magician. Your job is to make people think you’re getting high with them.”

We asked another former lawman for his assessment of undercover policing. Barry Cooper, formerly a Texas state trooper, took a break mid-way through production of his second DVD (his first is “Never Get Busted Vol. 1: Traffic Stops”) to talk to editor Marc Emery. “ Undercover work is not dangerous, despite what you’ve heard,” he explained. “From 1995 to 2005, only 28 police officers died from undercover work in US policing services – that’s 2.8 deaths a year, extremely low-risk. More police officers die from handing out parking and speeding tickets, and far, far more die dealing with domestic disputes, alcohol-fuelled fights, and other common police hazards. I bought cocaine many times undercover and I was never at much personal risk from the people I was dealing with. They wanted to do business with me, not harm me. In fact, it was the other way around. The citizen is the one put at risk, from the undercover cops. Tens of thousands of citizens are in prison because of informants and undercovers.”

How to be aware of narcs, undercovers, and informants in your midst? First,?there is a difference between an undercover officer and an?informant. The best undercovers and informants are extremely manipulative and?need to be handled differently.?But both are trying to take your freedom!

Informants are people who have been busted but were offered a deal to reduce their punishment: Help the cops get more “bad guys” and everything will be dismissed or lessened. Police often make informants sign an agreement?swearing they will not break any laws while working for them (i.e. selling drugs or using drugs), but will allow informants?to purchase drugs in order to “obtain probable cause” for an arrest or search warrant.?Of course, those informants usually return to their normal lifestyle regardless of the agreement with the cops, which includes selling and consuming. Knowing this, it can never be assumed that just because the?person in your house is smoking pot with you, or selling pot to you, that they are safe to be around.?Most informants who illegally use and sell?drugs are just helping make a case.

Undercover officers are actual police officers, but are strictly forbidden from using any illegal substances. Barry Cooper advises, “Be suspicious of any person who wants?to purchase drugs but will not partake.?Two common excuses cops are?trained to use for not partaking is ‘I’m getting this for my?girlfriend’ and ‘I’m making this purchase for re-sale’.? If a person claims?to be a user but will not be seen using, be suspicious!”

Cooper also has some good advice for testing out suspected undercovers. To make certain body wires are not being used, insist on speaking?with them in a swimming pool, at a beach, or a sauna. Electronic monitoring devices will not work when submerged in water, and wires can’t be hidden on anyone wearing a bathing suit. If a pool or shower seems inconvenient, insist on always whispering in the ear?of the suspect, as that cannot be heard on body wires. To foil any plans of a sting or bust, constantly change the time and location of buys or sells.?Cops spend a great deal of?time planning operations, and usually have surveillance teams, take down squads, and chase cars positioned near the location.? A sudden?change from the target citizen regarding the time and location of the deal?causes huge frustration with law enforcement, and is usually met with a response such as ‘If you don’t do the deal here and now, it’s off!’ so if you’re really being?pressured into making a pre-arranged deal immediately, it’s usually cops.”

Finally, if someone gives or sells you small amounts of drugs you can assume you’re not dealing with an American cop. An informant can distribute drugs, but US cops are not legally allowed to help ‘put drugs on the street.’ Canadian police, however, won that ability five years ago, and are legally protected in buying and selling drugs if it is determined to be part of their police work.

DEA Car Theft Ring Exposed

What are the odds some random carjacker is going to rip off a car full of reefer?

Makes for a great movie, but the odds are rather grandiose... unless the carjacker works for the Drug Enforcement Administration or sheriff’s office. Spokane, Washington sheriff’s officer Bryan Miller told a grand jury that “DEA agents would steal (“seize”) automobiles, convert them to their own use, take them across state lines and use those vehicles for several days or longer to pick up, deliver, and
purchase drugs, before they would apply for a warrant.”

When they can’t steal an automobile, a DEA agent will drive another vehicle into the car they want to nab without a warrant. From the United States Court of Appeals Ninth Circuit records filed June 8, 2007:

“Ascension Alverez-Tejeda and his girlfriend drove up to a traffic light. As the light turned green, the car in front of them lurched forward then stalled. Alverez-Tejeda managed to stop in time, but the truck behind him tapped his bumper. As Alverez-Tejeda got out to inspect the damage, two officers pulled up in a police cruiser and arrested the truck driver for drunk driving. The officers got Alverez-Tejeda and his girlfriend to drive to a nearby parking lot, leave the keys in the car and get into the cruiser for processing. Just then, out of nowhere, someone snuck into their car and drove off with it. As the couple stood by in shock, the police told the couple to leave the police cruiser and chased after the car thief with sirens blaring. The police later returned to the parking lot, told the couple that the thief had gotten away, and dropped them off at a local hotel.

“The whole incident was staged. DEA agents deduced from several intercepted calls and direct surveillance that Alverez-Tejeda was using a gang leader’s car to transport illicit drugs. The agents decided to stage an accident, theft, and chase in order to seize the drugs without tipping off the conspirators. Every character in the incident, other than Alverez-Tejeda and his girlfriend, was either a DEA agent or a cooperating police officer. Having seized the car through this ruse, the agents obtained a search warrant and discovered cocaine and methamphetamine inside, as well as property belonging to Alverez-Tejeda and his girlfriend.”

The decision sided with the DEA. “While we don’t generally second-guess the government’s use of stealth to ferret out criminal activity, we take a closer look when agents identify themselves as government officials but mislead suspects as to their purpose and authority. This is because people ‘should be able to rely on [the] representations’ of government officials (United States v. Bosse). If people can’t trust the representations of government officials, the phrase ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help’ will become even more terrifying. We find that the agents’ actions in misleading Alverez-Tejeda were reasonable in light of their vital interest in seizing the drugs and not exposing their investigation ... In sum, we hold that the agents’ manner of executing the seizure was constitutional.”

Circuit Judge Fisher added a comment at the end of the record. “I concur but also write separately to acknowledge the district court’s concerns about the unorthodox manner in which the seizure here was carried out. The staged collision, ‘theft’ of the car (and all of its contents), car chase and search of Alverez-Tejeda’s apparently innocent companion had the potential to spin out of control and exceed reasonable bounds. Nonetheless, on the record before us I agree with my colleagues that the agents’ ruse stayed within bounds (even if they pushed the envelope in some respects). Although we do not sustain the district court’s thoughtful analysis, I do not thereby mean to endorse this police action as a model for future creative seizures.”

Laundering Money And Smuggling

Just like the narco traffickers they hunt down, the DEA will also set up front businesses to smuggle or engage in laundering money on behalf of drug cartels. DEA agents can hold out drugs for you to buy then entrap you when you buy them. Unfortunately, unlike the corporate smooth-run cartels, the DEA operate their smuggling and money laundering rings with a little less acumen than legitimate government operations.

Special agent Tom Clifford’s book “Inside the DEA” details his failed efforts at stemming cocaine and heroin flowing into the US. But more importantly is the underlining story: That Clifford’s whole life purpose is the same as the people he intends to catch in his big stings. He gets off on the thrill of going undercover and setting up long-term cash exchanges, operating them just the way the “bad guys” do. When the Clinton administration shut down his money laundering operations Clifford became bitter, and exposes not how amazing he was but the criminal he is. Clifford brags, “We had established an international financial cartel with a paper bank on the Island of Guernsey off the French Coast, which the British assisted in establishing. We had storefront businesses in seven American cities and others in Rome, Madrid, London, Toronto, and The Cayman Islands, which served as drop-off points for the drug money. Our
credibility was as solid as our cover story was seamless. We now had a real-life American banker in Miami who was our financial man for the organization, and a background in the Mexico underworld that gave our undercover operatives a real underground reference.”

Hypochondriacs For Hash and High Everybody, I’m Doctor Nick

Shamefully, to gain access to compassion clubs narcs have portrayed themselves as sick and needy individuals. The DEA’s hurt-the-sick medical cannabis infiltration has used fake Medicaid cards, driver’s licenses, medical records, photo-shopped x-rays, and phony or coerced physicians’ recommendations. Their forgeries are the real deal too, as DEA agents have access to the actual government gear used to make the documents. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police admit they can place orders with the government body that oversees passport production for blank passports to use in sting operations.

DEA and police have become so talented at deception they even fool real doctors in stings designed to snuff out physicians who prescribe too much opiate based medication, at DEA discretion. Writing on his pain management website, www.doctordeluca.com, Dr. Alexander DeLuca commented, “Certainly, an unwarned physician would be unwary of a well-rehearsed undercover agent with fake medical records and borrowed x-rays. The DEA deals in deception. They deceive doctors, patients, judges, and juries. They deceive reporters, the American public, senators, and Presidents.”

When the DEA are not posing as patients, an agent will pretend to be a real-life “Dr. Nick Riviera” of the Simpson’s fame – a doctor without legitimacy. While true chronically and terminally ill med users have problems getting medical marijuana use consent, The Man will set up a fake doctor’s office to approve their undercover agents’ fake licenses easily. During their two-year investigation into the San Francisco Buyers Club in California, the state police set up five different Dr. Nick doctors’ offices to enable their agents to become members.

In St. John, New Brunswick, police used the Dr. Nick tactic to imprison Hemp New Brunswick compassion club operator Lynn Wood in 2005. Though New Brunswick narcs kept a dutiful eye on the coming and goings at the compassion club, they were flustered about their inability to become members themselves. Lynn Wood rejected three bogus applications by police to join because the doctors’ assessments were not verifiable. Frustrated, Officer Brian Hutchinson pretended to be ill and pestered the club to fast track his application on the day Lynn and her husband Jim Wood were hosting a wedding. Hutchinson’s doctored application was given to a hemployee to immediately verify. Instead of checking a listing in the phone book for the doctor, the hemployee called the number written on the application. Unfortunately, on the other end of the phone was not a doctor, but a Dr. Nick from the St. John police constabulary, who gladly confirmed his buddy Officer Brian Hutchinson was ill. The employee, believing they had spoken to a doctor, then sold one gram of cannabis to Officer Hutchinson. Narc Hutchinson only made two purchases in total, both under twenty dollars, before the club was raided, shut down, and mother-of-three Lynn Wood arrested to spend eight months in jail – even being forced to give birth to her fourth child in provincial jail.

Canada’s Criminal Code Exempts Cops

A 1999 Supreme Court of Canada ruling determined, “If it’s an offence for a member of the public, it’s an offence for the police to do it,” which temporarily stopped all sorts of shenanigans such as passport forgery, money laundering, and smuggling. The federal Liberal government acted swiftly, however, and changed the criminal code to allow officers to engage in all sorts of Tomfoolery.

“It allows us to traffic in drugs, to import drugs, to export drugs,” confessed RCMP assistant commissioner Raf Souccar to a parliamentary committee, when asked about a section of Canada’s criminal code designed to grant RCMP agents immunity from a slew of laws. Which laws? Souccar only says, “We just didn’t want to have a line drawn in the sand where it could create a loyalty test of sorts.”

Orwell’s 1984 Is Alive And Well

Scarily there are agents everywhere listening, taking notes, and prepared to swoop should you, the citizen, go beyond your own little white picket fence life. Beware the cannabis enthusiasm of the friendly stranger, as he or she maybe an agent of the DEA out to enslave you. The faux friendly stranger will employ any means to hook their bounty and haul it off to jail. A girlfriend, mistress, best-friend, anyone right down to the random street corner guy could be agent of the law pretending to be one of us, while you allegedly conduct an illegal enterprise that they may have even helped or instructed you to set up.

Google “The Laughing Buddha Nursery” in Metarie, Louisiana, and you don’t get any clue owner Grant Estrada has narked out customers to the Drug Enforcement Administration. Go to his website and you see he sells orchids and helped out after Hurricane Katrina, but there is no reference to the fact established in a Baton Rouge, Louisiana court earlier this year that Estrada accepted $6,000 from the DEA in order to inform on his hydroponics store clients. In specific, customer Juan Lopez bought thousands of dollars of equipment at Estrada’s store with Estrada’s urging. In fact, Estrada told Lopez that he would even sell the marijuana if Lopez would grow it. After spending $15,000 building a marijuana grow-room with Estrada’s enthusiastic encouragement and assistance, Lopez was raided by the DEA in February of 2005. At Lopez’s trial, the DEA did not disclose that it was paying Estrada to encourage and entrap growers or would-be growers. However, a new judge may order a new trial for Lopez, who was sentenced to five to twenty years in jail and has been incarcerated since July 2005. While Lopez languishes in jail for being gullible, Laughing Buddha is still in business as of July 2007.

DEA often target grow stores, videotape the employees advising clients about marijuana, and then advise the owner that if they don’t co-operate in a bigger catch, criminal charges will be laid and their business lost. Refusing to comply with a DEA request to narc can have devastating results, as Steve Tucker of Southern Lights Hydroponics found out when he refused to co-operate with the DEA and received a ten-year sentence in 1994 for selling grow equipment (read CC #65: “Steve Tucker, Forgotten Man” for more about his story). The DEA reads High Times and has launched three operations against High Times advertisers and their clients: in Operation Green Merchant (1987-1989), Operation Headhunter, and Operation Pipe Dream (2002). In all these cases, the DEA demanded shipping records from various hydroponics and garden equipment stores, but particularly the shipping records of United Parcel Service (UPS) and Federal Express (FedEx) in delivering this equipment to the consumer (presumably a cannabis grower). UPS and FedEx turned over records immediately without resistance. What to learn from this? Research the background of any gardening store you are considering buying from, and find out if it is implicated in any court records or newspaper website records as being involved with any cannabis growers who’ve been prosecuted in your area. Do not tell the gardening store staff you are growing marijuana, and do not ask for their advice on growing marijuana. Seek advice anonymously online or from grow books bought out-of-town or from Amazon.com.

Just be a smart stoner

The narc is out there, and they can put pressure on your dealer, your grower, your importer, your local grow store, your girlfriend – anyone and everyone you asso-ciate with. They can pose as hot new students in your high school, they can be a fake FedEx delivery man, they can even be a friendly grow store offering to hook you up with clones, equipment, or possibly an offer to sell your product. Always weigh the risks of all your actions in-volving marijuana and never leave unnecessary paper trails.