‘The Drug War Is a Game’: Disgraced Agent Reveals Web of Corruption at Heart of DEA

Shocking testimony from a DEA agent who was busted after spending years embezzling huge sums and participating in debaucherous sex parties with prostitutes reveals the depth of the rot at the core of the United States’ premier ‘anti-drug’ agency.

The former star agent convicted for receiving over a million dollars in kickbacks while working for the Drug Enforcement Administration has revealed that dozens of other DEA officials, federal prosecutors, agency informants, and cartel members bilked taxpayers out of millions while going on luxury good shopping sprees, attending sporting events, and partying with prostitutes across the world as well.

“We had free access to do whatever we wanted,” José Irizarry reportedly told the AP before beginning a 12-year federal prison sentence this week. “We would generate money pick-ups in places we wanted to go. And once we got there it was about drinking and girls.”

As Irizarry explained, “The drug war is a game. ... It was a very fun game that we were playing.”

“You can’t win an unwinnable war – [the] DEA knows this and the agents know this,” Irizarry said. “There’s so much dope leaving Colombia. And there’s so much money. We know we’re not making a difference.”

Instead, the former agent explained, he and his colleagues made the most of the situation by cashing in on their access and informants by securing bribes and falsifying official records.

A release published by the US Department of Justice (DoJ) in the wake of Irizarry’s 2021 conviction on 19 counts – including money laundering and fraud – insisted his actions “are in no way a reflection of the overwhelming majority of special agents.”

“It was too outlandish for them to believe this is actually happening,” Irizarry explained to the outlet. “The indictment paints a picture of me, the corrupt agent that did this entire scheme. But it doesn’t talk about the rest of [the] DEA. I wasn’t the mastermind.”

Indeed, the FBI’s ongoing investigations into Irizarry’s former colleagues indicates the US government believes corruption in the DEA is more widespread than they’ve been letting on in public.

All told, the DoJ has reportedly interviewed over 20 current and former DEA agents and prosecutors as a result of Irizarry’s information, including his former partner, as well as multiple prosecutors who attended his parties.

The latest scandal comes as the administration has been repeatedly plagued by shocking accusations of widespread corruption. In May, a former DEA agent was sentenced to over 11 years for taking thousands of dollars in bribes from a narcotics trafficker. Just a week later, additional former DEA agents were charged with accepting tens of thousands of dollars in exchange for leaking information to an accused drug dealer’s defense team.

The latest AP investigation indicates the rot may well go all the way to the core of the apple. “Every year, the DEA launders tens of millions of dollars on behalf of the world’s most-violent drug cartels through shell companies,” the publication noted.

Many countries and governments targeted by the DEA have long insisted that nominally anti-drug operations carried out by the US are a pretext to impose its preferred foreign policy on the rest of the world.

“For the CIA and DEA, the so-called ‘war on drugs’ is an excuse to attack progressive and anti-imperialist governments,” former Bolivian President Evo Morales, who was overthrown in a 2019 US-backed coup d’etat after kicking the DEA out of the country, wrote in a 2021 tweet. “It is a cover to cover up their geopolitical interests.”

Para la CIA y la DEA la denominada "guerra contra las drogas" es una excusa para atacar a gobiernos progresistas y antiimperialistas. Es una pantalla para encubrir sus intereses geopolíticos.
El caso denunciado por #México así lo demuestra.

— Evo Morales Ayma (@evoespueblo) January 16, 2021

The sentiment was confirmed by a spokesperson for Mexico’s Chihuahua state government who claimed the CIA and the DEA “don’t fight drug traffickers” but rather “try to manage the drug trade” instead.

“It’s like pest control companies, they only control,” Guillermo Terrazas Villanueva, the spokesman for Chihuahua, declared in an interview with Al Jazeera in 2012. “If you finish off the pests, you are out of a job. If they finish the drug business, they finish their jobs.”