DEA
Congressional Testimony
February 26, 2004
Statement
of
Karen
P. Tandy
Administrator
Drug
Enforcement Administration
Before
the
Subcommittee
on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources
Committee on Government Reform
U.S. House of Representatives
February
26, 2004
"Afghanistan:
Law Enforcement Interdiction Efforts in
Transshipment Countries
to Stem the Flow of Heroin"
Chairman Souder,
Ranking Member Cummings and distinguished members of the Subcommittee,
thank you for the invitation to testify today on the important issue
of disrupting the market for Afghan heroin.
Overview
Afghan drug production is a priority for the DEA that guides our enforcement
strategy in the region. As you know, opium production in Afghanistan
has resumed over the last two years, although it is still lower than
the highest level reached under the Taliban. While we expect that only
a small portion of the resulting opium and heroin will ultimately reach
the United States, these drugs are of great concern because they increase
worldwide supply and have the potential to fund terrorists and other
destabilizing groups. Because the situation inside Afghanistan presents
unique challenges to law enforcement, the DEA has successfully acted
to control the spread of Afghan opium and heroin in the surrounding nations
through Operation Containment.
Two weeks ago, I returned from Kabul where Assistant Secretary of State
Robert Charles, other senior officials representing the United States,
and I participated in discussions with Afghanistan Transitional Authority
President Hamid Karzai, United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime Director
Antonio Costa and other representatives from Afghanistan and the European
Union on the challenges posed by Afghan drug production. As a result
of my visit and discussions with Ambassador Khalilzad, the DEA intends
to significantly expand its presence in Afghanistan as well as intelligence
collection connected to our broader efforts to control transshipment
through the region. I look forward to discussing each of these important
issues with the Subcommittee.
Afghanistan
Poppy Production and the U.S. Response
Significant Opium
Production Resumes
Afghanistan is a major source country for the cultivation,
processing and trafficking of opiate products. It has historically
produced significant
quantities of opium, and accounted for over 70 percent of the world’s
supply in the year 2000, when the United States government estimated
Afghan opium production at 3,656 metric tons. In 2001, the Taliban banned
the cultivation of opium poppy. The DEA believes that the ban was likely
an attempt by the Taliban to raise the price of opium which had fallen
significantly due to the abundant supply produced in years prior to 2001.
Regardless of intent, production plummeted to 74 metric tons in 2001.
With the fall of the Taliban, Afghan growers resumed cultivation despite
renewal of the ban on poppy growth by the Karzai government. Opium production
has returned to its historically substantial amounts, although it is
important to emphasize that it has not yet reached the level of poppy
recorded in 2000. In 2003, the United States Government officially estimated
production of 2,865 metric tons of oven-dried opium from 61,000 hectares
of poppy cultivation.
Afghanistan:
Estimated Annual Potential Opium Production (Metric Tons)
2003 |
2002 |
2001 |
2000 |
1999 |
1998 |
1997 |
1996 |
2,865 |
1,278 |
74 |
3,656 |
2,861 |
2,340 |
2,184 |
2,099 |
Heroin Production
and Movement
The opium produced
in Afghanistan is readily made into narcotics to be sold on the international
market, much of which eventually reaches
users in Europe. While Europe is the primary destination for Afghan heroin,
much of the opium remains in Southwest Asia for local consumption. Laboratories
convert the opium into morphine base, white heroin, or one of several
grades of brown heroin. Large processing laboratories are primarily located
in southern Afghanistan; smaller laboratories are located in other areas
of the country, including the Nangarhar Province. In addition, morphine
base produced in Afghanistan is shipped to traffickers based in Turkey
and converted to heroin.
Transporting converted
opium from Afghanistan is no easy task. Larger than the State of Texas,
Afghanistan is landlocked,
forcing traffickers
to rely on challenging overland routes to move drug shipments out of
the country. In addition to the traditional smuggling routes through
Iran to Turkey, our intelligence reports indicate continued movement
of heroin shipments north from Afghanistan through the Central Asian
States, notably Tajikistan, to Russia. Some of the heroin is consumed
in Russia, while a portion moves on to other markets. Afghan heroin
also moves through India enroute to international markets and continues
to
be trafficked through Pakistan, where heroin is smuggled out through
airports and vessels leaving the Pakistan coast. DEA intelligence suggests that relatively little Afghan heroin is ultimately
destined for the United States, although we continue to monitor carefully
the market for potential new trends. Through the Heroin Signature Program
(HSP), the DEA Special Testing and Research Laboratory analyzes samples
from seizures at ports of entry and other randomly selected sources to
determine their purity and geographic origin. In 2002, Southwest Asian
heroin (which includes Afghan heroin) accounted for ten percent of the
weight of all samples analyzed. Preliminary data for 2003 indicate that
Southwest Asian heroin was eight percent by weight of the sample, although
the 2003 survey is not yet complete. Similarly, the Domestic Monitor
Program (DMP), which examines samples bought undercover on American streets
to monitor their characteristics, showed that Southwest Asian heroin
represented four percent of samples in 2002 and five percent in 2003.
Neither HSP nor DMP results should be equated with market share, but
rather suggest availability over time.
It is important to remember, however, that the past can be a prologue.
In 1984, as much as 50% of the heroin in the American market originated
in the Afghanistan/Pakistan border area. We must appreciate history and
diligently work to foreclose the return of Afghan heroin to the American
market.
The DEA’s
Response Inside Afghanistan
Opium production in Afghanistan is a significant concern and a priority
for the DEA because of its impact on worldwide drug supply and its potential,
as I will discuss later, to provide financial support to terrorists and
other destabilizing groups. In assessing strategies to control and respond
to this production, it is important to understand the significant operational
obstacles we face in Afghanistan. Three decades of civil war and unrest
have left the criminal justice system in disarray. Outside of Kabul,
the country is not uniformly controlled by the central government. The
Afghan Counter Narcotics Directorate is in its infancy stage of development,
leaving the DEA with no viable national or local drug enforcement counterparts.
Afghanistan also lacks many of the most basic elements of its criminal
justice institutions.
Due to security constraints, the DEA’s presence in Afghanistan
has been limited to two agents, whose movement and ability to conduct
traditional drug enforcement operations have been severely restricted.
Our Kabul Country Office, reopened in February 2003, nonetheless has
made superb contributions under these difficult circumstances. DEA agents
have continued to gather and disseminate intelligence to U.S. and British
law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Because the collection and
analysis of drug intelligence within Afghanistan and Central Asia feeds
our overall enforcement efforts in the region, we have made it a priority
and are also supporting a Department of Defense initiative to open an
intelligence “fusion center” in Afghanistan for multinational
information sharing. Our country office also continues to collect significant
amounts of human intelligence from our confidential sources in Kabul
and supports domestic and foreign drug enforcement operations.
After my recent
visit to Kabul and discussions with Ambassador Khalilzad, I am pleased
to let you know that the DEA will be working to significantly
expand its presence in Kabul from existing resources of our Office of
International Operations. I have also directed my agents to aggressively
focus on identifying heroin processing labs and sharing that information
with the Afghan authorities and our coalition partners. Our offices in
Kabul and throughout the region will place particular emphasis on working
with our partners to identify the major trafficking organizations and
their money flow so we can strategically attack them where they are most
vulnerable, whether inside Afghanistan or in the region.
The
DEA’s
Regional Initiatives Operation Containment
The challenges to law enforcement within Afghanistan strongly suggested
the need for a simultaneous, concerted effort to control Afghan drugs
in neighboring countries before they can spread to broader markets. Operation
Containment is a large-scale, multinational law enforcement initiative
begun in early 2002 under the leadership of the DEA and with special
support from Congress. Emphasizing coordination and information sharing
among nineteen countries from Central Asia, the Caucuses, Europe and
Russia, the program aims to implement a joint strategy to deprive drug
trafficking organizations of their market access and international terrorist
groups of financial support from drugs, precursor chemicals, weapons,
ammunition and currency. It has been enormously successful, and I would
like to thank the Subcommittee for its strong support for this initiative
and the opportunity to highlight it today.
The DEA supports Operation Containment worldwide, particularly in Pakistan,
Turkey, Russia, and Central Asia. We have expanded existing offices in
Europe and Southwest Asia and opened a new office in Uzbekistan. The
DEA has assigned Special Agents to its Kabul, Ankara, Istanbul, Tashkent,
Moscow and London Offices to support Operation Containment. In addition,
one Intelligence Specialist and one support position are assigned in
Ankara and one support position is assigned in Tashkent to support Operation
Containment. DEA is also seeking approval to assign two Special Agents
to Kyrgyzstan and additional agent and intelligence personnel to Uzbekistan
and Belgium for Operation Containment.
Another key element is the Sensitive Investigative Unit (SIU), a program
that has been highly successful in other regions of the world. An SIU
is made up of host nation law enforcement personnel, who are individually
screened to protect against corruption and then specially trained and
equipped to DEA standards. We have established a new DEA SIU in Uzbekistan,
and the DEA SIU in Pakistan has made several significant seizures. These
DEA-lead units provide critical and valuable assistance to anti-drug
efforts in their countries.
Intelligence sharing
is also a priority of Operation Containment, with the initiative supporting
regional intelligence sharing centers in Bucharest,
Romania and Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan and a short-term Fusion Center program
in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. DEA has temporarily assigned an Intelligence
Analyst to the Bucharest intelligence center.
Operation Containment
has been a great success. Since March 2002, it has resulted in 23 significant
seizures of narcotics and precursor
chemicals and led to
the dismantlement and disruption of several major distribution/transportation
organizations involved in the Southwest Asian drug trade. These include the
disruption three months ago in Istanbul of the Galip Kuyucu transportation
group, which was one of the most significant heroin traffickers in Turkey
and
a Justice Department international priority target. The Turkish National
Police, working with the DEA and Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise, seized 495
kilograms of heroin, and disrupted this organization, which was regularly transporting
similarly sized amounts of drugs throughout Western Europe. This investigation
also led to the arrest of Urfi Cetinkaya, a major source of heroin supply with
direct ties to Afghan drug traffickers. Another significant success for Operation Containment was the arrest
of 15 members of the Attila Ozyildirim heroin trafficking organization
and the seizure of 7.4 tons of morphine base in Turkey during March 2002.
This is the largest seizure of morphine base ever made. To put the magnitude
of this seizure in perspective - the amount seized was more than four
times greater than the total worldwide morphine base seizures made in
2000. Morphine base can be converted to heroin at a ratio of 1:1.
Drug Enforcement Training The DEA is also working to build law enforcement capability
and cooperation in Afghanistan and throughout the region. During October
2002, we participated
along with officials from Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry in a
United Nations International Narcotics Control Board conference in Tashkent,
Uzbekistan regarding Operation Topaz. Operation Topaz is intended to
bring together law enforcement in several nations to detect and seize
suspicious and unauthorized shipments of acetic anhydride, the primary
precursor chemical used in the production of heroin.
This initiative and other enforcement efforts have led to several significant
seizures in Turkey, Russia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Serbia, Bulgaria, and
other countries. Two examples particularly demonstrate the mutual benefit
of our partnerships and joint efforts. A joint investigation by the DEA,
the Turkish National Police, and the Russian MV resulted in the seizure
of four tons of acetic anhydride in Turkey during December 2002, which
in turn led to seizure of an additional 3,200 kilograms of acetic anhydride
in Bryansk, Russia in April 2003. Similarly, the seizure in August 2002
of 17 tons of acetic anhydride at a border crossing in Ipsala, Turkey
that had originated in Macedonia led to an additional 5.5 tons of the
chemical buried in a Turkish farm.
We have also particularly emphasized training for foreign
law enforcement agencies, including a three week seminar conducted
last September in
the United States for high-level police managers. General Hilaluddin
Hilal, Afghanistan’s Deputy Interior Minister of Security Affairs,
attended the course, which took place at both DEA Headquarters and the
DEA Academy in Quantico, Virginia. I participated in this seminar personally
as did members of the DEA’s senior management, and we believe that
it helped to begin and improve important partnerships with and among
DEA and the international agencies involved.
During 2004, the DEA plans to conduct Drug Unit Commander training courses
in Turkey and Uzbekistan. These one-week courses are funded through Operation
Containment and are geared for supervisors of operational drug units.
We anticipate that five to ten participants from throughout Afghanistan
will attend each school. In addition, DEA is expanding its training efforts
throughout the region during 2004, with training courses scheduled in
Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Thailand and India.
Links between Terrorism and the Afghan Drug Trade
Mr. Chairman, I would also like to briefly discuss
the potential links between terrorism and trafficking of Afghan opium
and heroin, which provide
an important rationale for our efforts in the region. Last September,
President Bush thanked DEA agents in a speech at Quantico, Virginia.
He said “By keeping drug money from financing terror, you’re
playing an important part of this war.” And we will continue doing
so not only through drug investigations potentially tied to terrorists
and those who fund them, but also through the DEA’s renewed emphasis
on financial investigations intended to deprive all drug traffickers
of their evil profits.
Raw intelligence and uncorroborated confidential sources continue to
indicate possible relationships between drug traffic and terrorist groups
within Afghanistan. The DEA will continue to assign the highest priority
to investigating any information linking drugs to terrorism. We will
do so in cooperation with our law enforcement and intelligence partners,
and we will aggressively work to gather and document intelligence relating
to drug activity that may finance terrorism.
My broader efforts as Administrator to renew the DEA’s emphasis
on financial investigations will also enhance our ability to reach potential
terrorist funding. In addition to creating a new DEA Office of Financial
Operations and money laundering groups in each field division, I have
directed that illegal drug proceeds financing terrorism should be of
the highest priority for those investigations. The Drug/Financial Fusion
Center recently created by Congress will also use the Foreign Terrorist
Tracking Task Force’s architecture to enhance capabilities to uncover
links between drug trafficking and terrorism. Investigative links between
drug trafficking and money laundering organizations and known terrorist
organizations will be shared with the FBI, the Department of Homeland
Security, the Treasury Department and the intelligence community. Our
intelligence programs continue to work closely with law enforcement and
the intelligence community to identify and anticipate emerging threats
posed by the links between drug trafficking and terrorism.
Conclusion
Mr. Chairman, control of drugs produced in Afghanistan both within the
country and throughout the region is an agencywide priority for the DEA.
I very much appreciate the opportunity to testify before the Subcommittee
today. I will be happy to answer any questions you may have.
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