The article, which appeared in the San Antonio Business Journal, pulls back the covers on a little-known tactic in the “war on drugs” that exposes airline passengers to potentially life-threatening risk, particularly in light of the expanding reach of global terrorism.

The tactic is brought to light by a Yale Law School professor, Steven B. Duke, who is attempting to prove the innocence of a client convicted of conspiracy to distribute heroin. The client was busted — or framed as Duke contends — after DEA agents transported 20 kilos (44 pounds) of heroin in December 1990 from Pakistan to New York City, via commercial airlines, and then allegedly used the heroin to snare distributors for a major drug syndicate.

A DEA spokesman in Washington, D.C., confirms that such a shipment via commercial airlines, called a controlled delivery, is still a tool in the agency’s crime-busting arsenal. In a controlled delivery, law enforcement allows a stash of illegal street drugs, like heroin or cocaine, to be transported from an originating location to its destination, under close surveillance, in an effort to snare drug-syndicate kingpins.

One DEA agent provided an affidavit in Duke’s legal case stating that during his tour of duty in Pakistan — from 1989 to 1993 — the DEA undertook “at least 30 such controlled deliveries.”

Adding yet another layer of intrigue to the practice is the fact that the commercial airlines being used to transport the drugs are not necessarily informed that the shipments are occurring. In fact, one of the airline’s used in the December 1990 shipment (Air France) claims that it was not aware its aircraft was enlisted as a mule in America’s war on drugs.

Still, on balance, some argue that controlled delivery is an effective law-enforcement tool in combating ruthless drug cartels. That may be true, at least when all goes as planned.

But when the system breaks down, or is corrupted, the consequences can be serious, even deadly. Duke outlines that threat in a 1999 letter to Jane Garvey, administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration:

“The DEA agents who brought the heroin to this country were allegedly linking up Pakistani drug producers and American dealers, through the assistance of informers working both in Pakistan and the United States. The drug dealers’ discovery that the distribution network had been infiltrated by informers was therefore an omnipresent possibility, which they might choose to defend against by blowing up the airplane.

“There is ample precedent for drug organizations planting bombs in airplanes occupied by passengers who are informants. In 1989, a commercial airliner headed for the United States was blown up in flight because the Medellin Cartel believed an informant was aboard. All 107 passengers and crew were killed. ...”

These revelations take on an even more ominous tone in the wake of Sept. 11. Consider the fact that of the 28 or so groups designated as terrorist organizations by the U.S. State Department, at least 10 (including al-Qaeda) have known ties to drug trafficking or drug cartels.

How hard would it be for terrorists to infiltrate an undercover DEA operation already replete with shadowy operatives — some of whom might be aware of a planned controlled delivery? A payoff here, a bag switch there and hours later there is a plane down somewhere — another casualty in the war on drugs.

Think it’s a wild conspiracy theory? Ask yourself, then, would you take the next flight out of your city if you knew it was hauling 44 pounds of heroin?

Of course, as it stands now, you wouldn’t know.

(The San Antonio Business Journal story can be found at the following Web link:
 http://sanantonio.bizjournals.com/sanantonio/stories/2002/07/22/story1.html.)

Bill Conroy ( Wkc6428@aol.com), a former investigative reporter for the Shepherd-Express in Milwaukee, is currently the editor of the San Antonio Business Journal. The opinions expressed in this article are those of its author and do not necessarily represent the views of the San Antonio Business Journal or its parent company.