Its called a "burn run."
When the government of Costa Rica asked for assistance in disposing of a
huge stash of cocaine and other drugs they’d accumulated during the
past two years worth of drug trafficking busts—in airports, in
airplanes, and on the high seas—the US was only too willing to help.
According to a spokeswoman for the DEA in Miami, it went off without a
hitch. At least that's what the DEA says. If anyone actually saw the
drugs destroyed, they're not talking.
A 24-ton no peek burn run
From Dover AFB, the Air Force sent crew of 12 aboard a C-17 Globemaster
called the “Spirit of Delaware,” a huge military cargo plane
half-a-football field long and almost as wide, that despite its size can
land on short (3500 ft) runways even if they’re unpaved or unimproved.
The C-17 picked up the cocaine at San Jose’s International Airport.
Pallets of cocaine from the OIJ evidence warehouse were loaded in two
vans. The transfer was overseen by 200 Costa Rican military and law
enforcement officers in tactical vehicles.
“I
can confirm that we did assist Cost Rica in destroying 24 tons of
cocaine. It took place at an undisclosed location outside Miami,” a DEA
spokeswoman stated. “You’re the first person to ask.”
24 tons of cocaine is worth as much as three-quarters of a billion
dollars. Yet the spokeswoman was unfazed. Her tone was matter-of-fact.
“We just took care of it,” she said.
Except, if anyone saw Costa Rica’s cocaine go up in smoke, they have yet to come forward.
So far, the explanations on offer are less than satisfactory.
Seldom-asked questions
It started with a question that hardly ever comes up. “How are we going to get rid of all this cocaine?”
But law enforcement officials in Costa Rica were asking it several months ago. Or, at least, “allegedly" asking it.
Because while no one is questioning that Costa Rica sent 24 tons of
cocaine to the US to be incinerated, the operation has been received
with what can be characterized as somewhere between skepticism and
disbelief.
For one thing, the atmospherics are all wrong. Like the ritualized perp walk every notorious drug baron endures when caught, drug burnings are spectator events in
Latin America, filled with ritual pomp. If he's there, El Presidente
wears the sash of office. Generals in mirrored Raybans, decked out like
beauty queens, medals shining like bling.
When Latin American drug agencies incinerate huge amounts of seized narcotics, which happens on a regular basis, there’s
often a reviewing stand. Representatives from all the federal agencies
involved in the bust stand around and smile. They watch each other.
They eye the drugs. There’s a couple of speeches. There's the
traditional group picture in front of the piled-up dope.
Only then do they fire up the torches, and set fire to the bonfire. Spectators discreetly move downwind.
But not this time.
24
tons of cocaine, representing two years worth of interdiction by Costa
Rica’s Coast Guard Service, the Justice Dept (OIJ), the Border Police,
the Fuerza Publica (national police force) will meet a peculiarly
low-key fate.
When the C-17 arrives in Miami, a Costa Rican judge is on the plane. At
least, he's rumored to have been on the plane. The judge and the Costa
Rican Consul in Miami are supposed to be on hand to confirm the delivery
and destruction of the cocaine.
No such advisory has been forthcoming.
The biggest question: “Why?”
Most Latin American nations get rid of seized drugs by piling it up in a field and lighting a match. So why not Costa Rica?
“It had to do with new regulations from the Costa Rican EPA,” said the
DEA’s spokeswoman. Cocaine, she insisted, requires special incinerators
that burn at 816 Celsius (1,500 Fahrenheit), with multiple chambers
that filter out the hazardous fumes and leave nothing but carbon
dioxide.
Pieced together from several Costa Rican newspapers, the story of how
24 tons of cocaine flew to Miami on a US Government plane goes like
this:
Prior to the massive airlift of cocaine to Miami in late July, Costa Rica's Justice Dept (the OIJ) used to destroy seized drugs at a cement factory incinerator, until several unfortunate incidents resulted in the cancellation of the contract.
Bags holding 20 kilograms of pure cocaine began to go "missing."
Costa
Rica went back to stockpiling their seized swag. Later, when employees
began to complain they couldn’t walk around the drug warehouse because
it was stuffed to the brim with cocaine, the cement factory agreed to
donate a mini-incinerator, which burns up to 300 kilograms per hour of
cocaine.
“By February of 2012 they’d burned so much coke that the incinerator began to malfunction.
Fumes began escaping the incinerator’s chambers. Those
involved—including judges supervising the destruction—began getting
high.”
Math for Meth-heads
While
DEA officials are understandably reluctant to look a 24-ton gift horse
made of cocaine in the mouth, Costa Rica’s big donation raises a
puzzling question: Why doesn't the math add up?
Where exactly did Costa Rica get the 24 tons of cocaine they're turning over to the gringos?
"The cocaine had been seized over the course of the last two years
during anti-drug operations in the country,” reported Costa Rica’s
online newspaper CRHoy.com.
Two years. Two years worth of seizures would be June 2011 through June 2013.
In 2012 Costa Rican drug seizures totaled 15.5 tons. In 2011 they
seized 7.4 tons. This year, when the US Air Force came calling, they
were at about 5 tons.
Take half of the 2011 total (3.5), all of 2012 (15.5 tons) and year to date through July in 2013(5 tons.)
That’s roughly 24 tons, about the same amount they turned over to the DEA.
Except… remember that mini-incinerator the cement factory gave
them that broke, but not before successfully incinerating what
newspapers said was up to 300 kilograms per hour, for an unspecified
length of time?
If the mini-incinerator worked for just one day before it broke down,
Costa Rican officials would have shaved 7 tons of cocaine off their
total. The C-17 cargo flight to Miami would have had just 14 tons of
cocaine aboard.
So—in addition to the cocaine seized by Costa Rica over two years—where
did the additional 7 tons of cocaine the USAF flying to Miami come
from?
50-yard line seats for the Army-Navy game?
After 24 tons of pure cocaine from Costa Rica fell into their laps, US
officials were perhaps understandably smug. It was the first hopeful
sign that the Mexican drug cartels’ vise-like grip on US cocaine supply
may be easing. The 24-ton import allowed the DEA to cut Mexican cartels’
market share in the US by at least five percent.
To convey the thanks of a grateful nation, Costa Rican officials should
expect at least some 50-yard line seats at next year’s Army-Navy game.
Especially if the coke is as pure as has been rumored.
"Costa Rica is today the closest the U.S. has to a protectorate in
Central America," said Sam Logan, director of Southern Pulse, a
risk-analysis firm focused on Latin America.
Perhaps because of the publicity, Costa Rica’s Dept. of Investigations (OIJ in Spanish) announced they will “no longer send”
cocaine or other controlled substances to the United States. The way
they phrased it suggests the 24 ton shipment was more than a one-time
event.
Of course, in the drug trade, one never knows. Apparently, that’s the point.
Irregularities surrounded the flight.
Although
it was a big story all over Central America, the massive coke haul to
Miami didn’t make the papers in the States. One reason it played big in
Costa Rica involves a curious circumstance peculiar to that country.
Because Costa Rica has no military, their constitution requires legislative permission for any foreign military forces to enter the country. And, in fact, a Commander Bradley Ripkey from the US Coast Guard sent a letter to Costa Rican officials requesting permission for the Air Force plane to land.
A brief investigation discovered that Bradley Ripkey is, as advertised, a US Coast Guard Commander. So, there's that.
But the Costa Rica Star revealed that no official permission had been
given to allow the U.S. military flight into Costa Rican airspace. Nor
were legislators informed about the massive transfer of narcotics into
American hands.
"We are investigating the government for what happened,” said the leader of one of Costa Rica’s leftist parties.
“There is no law regulating the export of drugs. It's a unique situation to put them onto a U.S. military plane.”
A unique situation? Not hardly. The legislator was being too kind.
A long history of unique situations
Surely he remembered the Contras. Surely he remembered Oliver North?
Surely he remembered CIA pilot Barry Seal flying weapons down to the
Contras on old C-123 military cargo planes, and then flying back with a
cargo hold filled with tightly-wrapped packages of cocaine.
Surely he remembered CIA official John Hull, who used a landing strip
on his ranch in Costa Rica to send planes north filled with drugs?
None of them are allowed into the tiny nation-state of Costa Rica today. They've been permanently barred for drug trafficking.
It is comforting to know that DEA chief administrator Michelle
Leonhart, who traipsed around Afghanistan a few years ago on the arm of
American drug trafficker Oliver North, will someday face sanctions too,
just maybe not in this life.
