Villavicencio, Colombia

As I had previously mentioned, the purpose of my assignment to Colombia was to assist the Colombian government’s struggle against the Medellin cartel and the subversive elements destabilizing the country. Only an insignificant fraction of the thousands of firearms seized from the drug traffickers and the guerrillas by the Colombian police and military had been successfully traced due to the insufficient collection of identification information. To remedy that situation, I developed and delivered a rigorous program to train as many frontline policemen, soldiers, and marines as I could to improve and expand the submission of gun traces.

After being called upon to identify military ordnance and commercial explosives, I expanded my firearms identification training to include military ordnance and commercial explosives identification. With the help of ATF’s Firearms Technology Branch (FTB) and Explosives Technology Branch (ETB), I developed two guidebooks relating to the weapons being recovered in Colombia. I made myself available to everyone I trained to help them trace the weapons they seized. I included my phone and fax number on the guidebooks I provided each attendee and invited them to contact me with any questions or doubts they might have, no matter the hour. Later, it would become clear that it was a good thing that I did.

Now that the issue of properly identifying firearms, ordnance, and commercial explosives had been resolved, a second, equally important issue had to be addressed – timeliness. Not only relating to the reporting of seizures, but to ATF’s ability to return trace results in a timely manner.

ATF’s National Tracing Center traces U.S. commercial and military firearms. It can also trace foreign-made commercial or military firearms through ATF’s unique relationships with the firearms manufacturers of the world. Unfortunately, they are ridiculously understaffed and denied by U.S. law from maintaining computerized records. Traces are handled painstakingly by telephone or, in the case of out-of-business records, by microfiche. At the time, a routine trace took about two weeks; an urgent trace took twenty-four hours. My Colombian counterparts were sympathetic to the problem, although they couldn’t understand why my agency was forced by law to use outdated, antiquated, and completely inefficient methods to conduct such a vital law enforcement and/or intelligence function. This was a serious intelligence gap affecting the timeliness of my providing results to my counterparts.

After reviewing the initial trace results, it had become clear that the Medellin cartel had significantly accessed the U.S. commercial firearms market through their cocaine distribution networks in Florida, Texas, Michigan, and California. The ATF agents investigating the complex straw purchasing networks involved, identified hundreds of AR15 SP1, Mini-14, and Steyr Aug rifles that were suspected of having been illegally acquired by the Medellin cartel.

I asked those agents to provide me with the lists of guns they had identified so that I could “watch” for them. Every time I received a trace request relating to these three types of rifles, I was able to provide an instant trace result that included the general findings of the case agent investigating that particular conspiracy. I had similar lists for other firearms preferred by the cartel including Action Arms Uzi carbine imports, Beretta USA pistols, RPB M10 and M11 pistols, and Intratec pistols. Having these lists gave me the ability to close the gap regarding the timeliness of the reports I provided my Colombian counterparts from the usual two weeks it took our grossly understaffed tracing center to conduct a trace to, at times a matter of an hour (I still only use two fingers to type).

I also had developed watch lists for explosives ordnance and mining explosives. Unlike firearms that have unique serial numbers (there are a few exceptions), military ordnance and mining explosives are made in lots and have a common lot number identifying the date and place of manufacture. A record is kept relating to the number of explosives in that lot that were shipped to a particular end user. Tracing explosives is not an exact science, but can be fairly accurate through a process of elimination. ETB has an excellent working relationship with the military and commercial explosives manufacturers of the world and can trace lot numbers with great success. Once the source of the grenade, rifle grenade, mortar, or rocket was identified, I put it on a watch list giving me the ability to provide an instant result.

In furtherance of my mission, I visited countless armories, to personally collect tracing information of significant seizures of firearms taken from the Medellin cartel, or weapons and ordnance taken from the guerrillas after an engagement. Fortunately, most of those weapons found their way to the armories in Bogota. There were, however, instances where I had to go to the field to inspect those seizures. On several occasions, I had to travel to the front lines, through areas infested by guerrillas or narco-paramilitaries. In some cases, the smoke of battle having barely lifted.

At first, I followed what I thought was procedure and sought authorization from headquarters to go examine the weapons seizures. Time was of the essence and I had to move or loose the opportunity. They never denied me permission, but at the same time, they never gave me authorization, causing me to miss a couple of significant seizures. When it became evident that HQ was reluctant to authorize my traveling into a conflict zone, I got the clear impression that, as the saying goes, “it was better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission”. So, that is exactly what I did, and never once did I have to ask for dispensation.

I had no problem getting to police or military armories that were located near major cities that were accessible by commercial flights. Likewise, in those situations where police armories were in remote areas inaccessible by commercial carriers, I hitched a ride on the DEA (“Embassy”) aircraft. In conflict areas where the only strip available belonged to the Colombian military, the “Embassy” aircraft was not permitted to land. So, I got help from my U.S. military counterparts (or others) to get me where I needed to go, usually in a Colombian air force transport plane. On several occasions, I had to travel overland in a military convoy or incognito in nondescript vehicles with nonuniformed soldiers through guerrilla infested territory. In areas controlled by Medellin cartel narco-paramilitaries, I traveled undercover in old cars with plainclothes national policemen. I won’t go into the measures we were prepared to take if caught at a guerilla checkpoint or the precautions we took when forced to spend a night at an inn watched closely by narco-paramilitaries.

The Colombian police and military were pretty good, if not timely about keeping me informed about the seizures they made from the cartel or the guerrillas respectively. They eventually would get around to involving me, but it was not on the top of their list. They would, however accommodate me if I went to them, asking to see the weapons. It was up to me to keep on top of things if I wanted to get in the fight in real time. So, I turned to the DEA intelligence analyst based at the U.S. Consulate on the North coast in Barranquilla and to the analysts at the U.S. Embassy in Bogota for help. Later, I would get help from the Defense Attaché (and others). They monitored the newspapers and talked to their police and military contacts. They provided me with military and police bulletins and newspaper clippings of seizure incidents occurring in their areas of responsibility.

I also had made contacts (usually in a social setting) with police and intelligence liaison officers from around the region stationed at their country’s embassies in Bogota. Through them, I was able to get information regarding lost ordnance or firearms from their inventories. This worked especially well with Nicaragua, after the ouster of the Sandinistas; the Panamanians, after the arrest of Manuel Noriega; and, with Venezuela, after the two failed coups tied to Hugo Chávez in 1992.

I had made significant contacts at the highest levels of the Administrative Department of Security (DAS), the national police, the army, and the navy (marines) as well as the commanders of their intelligence services. Armed with the incident reports and newspaper clippings, I went to these contacts to get me access to the captured weapons and ordnance. Through the open-door relationship I enjoyed with them, I was able to access the information in a timely manner in exchange for providing them with a timely report of my findings. (In the case of the gun traces, they were not interested in knowing the name of the purchasers, but how the guns found their way to Colombia.)

Relying on the news media or Colombian incident reports was not at all perfect. Oftentimes, the incident was not immediately reported, getting to my desk days after the event. Another problem was that there were many incidents that were not covered by the media or known by the military or police (at the time). This represented two very significant intelligence gaps.

Then a wonderful and unexpected thing happened. The policemen, soldiers, and marines I trained had been reassigned to the four corners of Colombia. They started sending me trace requests from every imaginable corner of Colombia in real time. Through them, I was able to learn the circumstances of the seizure, including the names of the people involved, and other vital details.

Using the data I had accumulated through the firearms identified by ATF agents working Medellin cartel gun trafficking conspiracies and the intelligence relating to lost inventory provided to me by intelligence personnel from Panama, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, I was able to provide instant responses to numerous seizures taken during critical incidents involving the Medellin cartel or the guerrillas. With the outstanding support of the ATF National Tracing Center, Explosives Technology Branch, and Firearms Technology Branch, I was able to demonstrate to the leaders of the Colombian police, military, and government that ATF was a vital asset in their struggle against the narco-terrorists and subversives seeking to destabilize their country.

Based on my findings, I prepared weapons trafficking trends reports I provided to the Colombian authorities and to my colleagues at the U.S. Embassy depicting the situation on the battlefield, identifying sources, supply lines, threats, and trends. I became recognized as an expert regarding these matters and through my contacts spread across Colombia, I had a readily available, timely, and highly reliable intelligence network that I could tap into for information – any information.

So successful had I been that the directors of intelligence for the Colombian army and national police asked me to help them organize firearms and explosives intelligence units to interface with my operation. Later they would combine these units and form an interagency unit called the Anti-terrorism Intelligence Group (GIAT). The Administrative Department of Security (DAS) dedicated an analyst to specialize in gathering firearms and explosives trafficking intelligence and asked that I help train her. She went on to become an internationally recognized expert in the field, moving on to Interpol.

I earned the respect of the Colombian government, particularly the Minister of Defense, who would ask that I be one of only two American agents assigned to work with the Search Bloc based at the Carlos Holguin police school in Medellin after Pablo Escobar’s “escape” from his self-built prison: Operation Envigado.

I will relate what happened in the next segment.