Partnerships Across Borders: Capturing International Fugitives Through CooperationRichard J. Griffin May 4, 2007 Good evening and thank you for that kind introduction. It’s a pleasure to join so many friends and colleagues from the U.S. Marshals Service, the Toronto Police Service, Interpol, and other law enforcement organizations from around the world. It’s a particular honor to be in Toronto this month as the Toronto Police celebrate their 50th anniversary as a consolidated, metropolitan police force. Legendary Football coach Vince Lombardi once said “the quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence! I want to commend chief Blair and all the men and women of the force for their sustained commitment and for their continuous excellence. I would also like to thank the Toronto Police Service Fugitive Squad and the U.S. Marshal’s Service for sponsoring this meeting. All of you know that clear communication and cooperation are critical elements in police work. This reality is highlighted by an incident that recently occurred involving my neighbor. His wife woke him up late one night, and told him he had left the light on in their shed. When he looked out his window, he saw 3 burglars in his shed. When he called 911 to report the break-in, he was told there weren’t any units on that side of the county, but they would have someone respond when they could. My neighbor hung up, waited one minute and then called back. He said, hi, it’s me again. Don’t worry about the response because I shot all three of them! Within 3 minutes 3 squad cars arrived and the burglars were taken into custody. When my neighbor went outside, the Sergeant said “I thought you said you shot them? My neighbor replied “I thought you said there weren’t any cars in the area! Seeing so many colleagues who have traveled here from far-off countries to attend this meeting reinforces to me the vital role that international communication and cooperation plays in tracking, arresting, and extraditing fugitives. The Bureau of Diplomatic Security is the security and law enforcement organization within the U.S. Department of State. Our mission is to provide a secure environment for the conduct of U.S. diplomacy. With Special Agents serving at more than 285 diplomatic missions worldwide, DS is the most widely represented law enforcement organization in the world. DS Special Agents work with local law enforcement authorities worldwide to track down fugitives from justice. We could not do our work without the support of our partners in foreign law enforcement. We are deeply grateful for your assistance. The apprehension of fugitives is one of the most important challenges facing the global law enforcement community today. Because they frequently finance their flight from the law through further criminal activities, international fugitives pose a serious threat to public safety worldwide. Fugitive apprehension is an important part of the Global War on Terrorism—not just in terms of apprehending terrorist suspects, but also in combating the associated criminal activities that often fund terrorism. As with terrorists, air travel and new forms of information technology—including the Internet—give today’s fugitives unprecedented access to locations and resources worldwide. In the words of Irish author Edmund Burke, “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” Fortunately, law enforcement organizations with dedicated professionals also have unprecedented information resources and other investigative tools at their disposal. Indeed, information and resource sharing is the basis for success in all aspects of fugitive apprehension. Collaboration and the sharing of ideas, information, and resources allow us to track and apprehend fugitives as never before. Several examples come to mind. For instance, the efficient exchange of information between DS and Mexican law enforcement resulted in the capture by Mexican police of Michael Astorga, one of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted fugitives. Astorga was wanted in New Mexico for shooting a deputy sheriff during a routine traffic stop and in connection with an earlier murder in that state. I know that we have representatives from Mexico in the audience. I would like to mention that, last year, a record number of 63 fugitives were returned to the United States by Mexican authorities to face criminal charges. This is the highest number of fugitives ever extradited in one year from Mexico to the United States, and it demonstrates our countries’ common commitment to bringing criminals to justice. As that number indicates, when local and national authorities work together, there is no limit to what we can do. The benefits of cooperation were amply demonstrated in 2005 when the U.S. Marshals Service worked with other Federal law enforcement agencies, including DS, and with local authorities in the United States to carry out Operation FALCON (Federal and Local Cops Organized Nationally). During a seven-day period in April 2005, Operation FALCON resulted in the arrest of 10,340 fugitives across the United States and elsewhere, including the detainment of 16 foreign and international fugitives. One of the fugitives apprehended during Operation FALCON was Michael Leahy, who had been wanted in the United States since 2001 for unlawful use of weapons, attempted child abduction, and resisting a police officer. With the assistance of police forces in Ireland and Great Britain, Leahy was tracked first to Ireland and then to London, where he was caught trying to lure children into a church van where he had stashed seven weapons. Our British colleagues later found child pornography on Leahy’s computer. Operation FALCON represents just one facet of DS’s long-standing partnership with the U.S. Marshals. In 2003, the U.S. Marshals and DS launched a data matching project that has netted hundreds of domestic and international fugitives over the past 3 years. Helping foreign law enforcement agencies track down fugitives believed to be in the United States is another important component of the DS/U.S. Marshals Service partnership. In countries around the globe, local law enforcement agencies turn to DS Special Agents to initiate fugitive apprehension efforts with our partners in the U.S. Marshals Service. Catching violent offenders is the primary focus of DS’s partnership with the Marshals Service. Together we target what the Marshals Service deems “the worst of the worst”: murderers and serial murderers, pedophiles, rapists, drug and human traffickers, and organized crime figures. With the recent passage by Congress of the Adam Walsh Act, our collective ability to target sex offenders who travel internationally to abuse children and those involved in organized child prostitution and pornography rings should be greatly enhanced. Like Mexico, Costa Rica has become a popular destination for fugitives from the United States, And Costa Rican police and customs authorities have played key roles in helping DS and the U.S. Marshals track down, arrest, and extradite these fugitives. For example, without the good working relationship between the Costa Rican police and DS, Billy Honaker, a personal-injury lawyer wanted in Colorado on six counts of sexual assault on a child, could not have been apprehended last year. The same goes for Russell Earl Winsted, who was wanted in Kentucky for the murder of a family member. Winsted was featured on the television show, America’s Most Wanted, which generated a tip that he had been spotted gambling at a casino in San Jose, Costa Rica. The DS agent at the U.S. Embassy in San Jose worked with Costa Rican police to locate and arrest him. Costa Rican police also apprehended fugitive Walter Myer, who fled from Alabama to avoid prosecution for sexual abuse, and the production of child pornography. President John F. Kennedy once said of Canada and the United States that: "Geography has made us neighbors. History has made us friends. Economics has made us partners. And necessity has made us allies." Those words ring especially true when it comes to tracking and apprehending fugitives. Like our colleagues in Mexico, Canadian law enforcement officers are on the front lines when it comes to tracking and apprehending U.S. fugitives. I know that we have some members of the York Regional Police here this evening, and I want to acknowledge the assistance they gave DS and the U.S. Marshals with a fugitive case last winter. This past New Years Eve, DS’s Regional Security Officer (RSO) in Ottawa was contacted at home by a U.S. Marshal in Cleveland who reported that a convicted Federal felon was holed up in a hotel north of Toronto. The RSO called a contact in the Canadian Border Service Agency and told her the story. She called a judge and got a telephonic arrest warrant for the subject on immigration violations and failure to disclose that he was a convicted felon from the United States. Acting on the provincial arrest warrant, the York Regional Police arrested the felon, held him over the long New Year’s weekend, and had him deported back into the custody of the U.S. Marshals later that same week. That’s what I call great teamwork. In 2005, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and DS collaborated to bring in one of the world’s most dangerous men, Abdullah Khadr. An interesting aspect of the case was that Khadr was a Canadian citizen who was charged with criminal offenses by courts in the United States. As a boy in the 1990s, Khadr left Canada with his parents and moved to Afghanistan, where they lived in Osama bin Laden's compound. He was sent to Al-Qaeda military training camps, and he once said that a ten-year-old learning to fire an AK47 was as common in Afghanistan as it was for a Canadian child to learn to play hockey. By 2004, Khadr was under investigation by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for terrorism-related activities. In December 2005, the Mounties acted on a provisional warrant requested by the United States and arrested him here in Toronto. In February 2006, he was indicted by the United States Attorney in Boston on charges that he conspired to kill American citizens overseas and conspired to use weapons of mass destruction. Abdullah Khadr is still in prison here in Canada while extradition proceedings move forward. These two cases show how the bonds of cooperation and information sharing that are formed between our organizations on more routine cases can benefit us when a more complex fugitive case arises. There are many more stories describing how fugitives have been tracked, arrested, and extradited from foreign jurisdictions. The names, the crimes, and the countries may differ, but I believe that all these success stories share one element in common: The fugitives would not have been captured without the strong partnerships we have established between our law enforcement organizations. I’d like to close with a quote from William Butler Yeats who wrote: Think of where man’s glory begins and ends Thank you for giving me the honor of speaking to you tonight, and most importantly, thank you for your continuing partnership—and friendship. |
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