Combatting the Global Drug Threat: Scene Setter for the 2006 International Drug Enforcement Conference

MR. SOUCCAR: It’s a real privilege for me to be here today to speak to you about Canada's involvement in the international drug enforcement conference and the extent to which the Royal Canadian Mounted Police works with its international partners to combat the global drug threat.

I have to tell you that the RCMP is very proud and considers itself privileged to be co-hosting this conference for the first time with the Drug Enforcement Administration. The key representatives from the RCMP will be myself; Chief Superintendent Derek Ogden, Director General of Drugs and Organized Crime and the co-president of the conference, along with the Administrator of the DEA, Ms. Karen Tandy, will be Deputy Commissioner Pierre Yves Bourduas.

The presence of high-level international drug enforcement officers at the conference is essential to find solutions relative to the supply and demand reduction for drugs. At this year's IDEC we will focus on methamphetamine, the drug threat, money laundering, terrorism and law enforcement cooperation.

I'll give you a brief overview of the Canadian perspective, very briefly, on these topics. With respect to methamphetamine, it is a growing threat to the health and safety of our communities. The RCMP is aware of the extent of the problem surrounding planned labs, operations and is committed to working with its partners locally and internationally in order to curtail the ingredients used in the production of methamphetamine.

One of the initiatives outlined in our Canada's renewed drug strategy is the establishment of teams that plan clandestine laboratory enforcement teams that are located strategically across the country and have their sole focus on the methamphetamine situation. In the RCMP we take a balanced approach to substance abuse. We focus on the enforcement, the supply reduction, as well as the demand reduction.

In 2005, we launched a ChemWatch program in partnership with the National Chemical Diversion Program and a number of concerned chemical producers, distributors and retailers. In addition, we're working with other partners bringing regulatory changes to the precursor control regulations presently in place in Canada. At last year's IDEC in Santiago, Chile, Canada's efforts in reducing clandestine laboratories and chemical diversion was highlighted as an example of our success. While the accolades are appreciated, we recognize that we still have a lot of hard work ahead of us in Canada and together with our international partners.

In terms of our drug strategy, as I said, we're committed in reducing both the supply and demand for drugs. Our combined efforts in the RCMP, along with the Canada Border Service Agency, other Canadian law enforcement agencies and international partners have resulted in a greater rate of interdiction of various types of drugs. We are continuing monitoring trends and criminal activity to develop and implement effective enforcement strategies and to deploy our resources in the most efficient and effective manner possible.

In terms of money laundering, to me this is an extremely important element when we talk about the drug problem. It's a driving force behind the drug business, and if we're to have any impact on the drug crimes or major drug trafficking organizations, we have to hit them where it counts and take away financial assets accumulated through the drug trafficking business. At the Montreal IDEC the RCMP will participate in a money- laundering trends discussion panel, which we'll have an opportunity then to talk about the Canadian experience relative to this.

We'll provide a perspective on the global challenges related to money laundering and proceeds of crime law. And in the fall of 2005, just to give you a very brief overview, Canada enacted a post-conviction reverse onus measure which targets the illicit gains accumulated by high-level drug trafficking organizations. The new measure will allow law enforcement agencies in Canada to have a greater impact on the finances targeted by law enforcement agencies towards organized crime.

Since the early '90s another trend Western world enforcement agencies have faced is the increased reliance on criminal activity by terrorist networks across the world. Traditional criminal activities, such as drug trafficking, robberies, smuggling are rapidly becoming the main source of terrorist funding. The link between drug trafficking and terrorism has been established on the criminality front in so far that we know that terrorist organizations used drugs as a means to finance their activities. It's important to note that drug trafficking is but one criminal activity used to generate profit for terrorist organizations. The drug trafficking methods used by organized crime and terrorist organizations is very similar. The reason for this is quite simply is that there is just too much profitability in the drug trafficking business for terrorist organizations not to be taking advantage of it.

For terrorist organizations the source of funding is irrelevant and only matters because it procures weapons, facilitates movement and produces propaganda. We know of a few conflict areas where the harvesting of drugs is used for terrorist financing, these include the narco-terrorism phenomena in Colombia, the link between the Taliban regime and the opium in Afghanistan, the Lebanon-based Hezbollah who finance their activities through various drug trafficking sources in the world. I want to underscore that the link between organized crime and terrorism is being investigated and further results will enable the international law enforcement community to curb more efficiently criminal offenses perpetrated by terrorist organizations on the global scene.

Canada has many successful partnerships with the U.S. and international law enforcement agencies to fight the international drug trade because we ultimately share the same objective of reducing the supply and consumption of illicit drugs and the serious consequences they pose to our society and our citizens. Law enforcement agencies around the world must be part of a broader integrated response by the international community to combat the global drug threat. It's essential that we continue to work together in an integrated and intelligence-lead way to identify common targets so that we can coordinate regional and global attacks on these targets.

Over the course of the IDEC, over 80 countries will come together to identify the many challenges that lie ahead and we'll work together to find solutions and to share best practices. We will build bridges and discuss how to enhance the role of law enforcement in preventing drug demand and supply through sustained, integrated communication with the international law enforcement community. The drug threat is not a problem that one country faces. It's a global problem and this is why the IDEC exists.

Thank you.

MR. BRAUN: Good morning. It's a pleasure to be here representing DEA and with my esteemed colleague Raf Souccar from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Raf basically said everything that I was going to say, so I'm going to forget about my prepared comments and just focus more on some thoughts that -- some things that I was thinking about as Raf was making his presentation. It's comforting to know that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the DEA are in absolutely lock-step with respect to how we view the world's drug threat or the threats posed by both drug trafficking as well as terrorism. We have a long, long standing -- professional standing relationship with the RCMP. We've worked many, many very complex transnational drug investigations together over the years and we're going to be working many more in the future.

Some things that after 32 years in this business as a local police officer for four years, a state police officer for seven and now a federal narcotics agent with DEA for about 21 years, there are some things that concern me that I just want to point out. And all of these things, the 80-plus nations that are attending the IDEC will be focused on.

The first is the evolution of drug trafficking. Let me try to start by explaining what global law enforcement is up against. If you look at the modern-day drug trafficking organization, by the way, it's identical to the modern-day drug trafficking organization -- or global terrorist organization. But if you look at the modern-day global drug trafficking organization, you have a highly sophisticated organizational structure. These organizations are broken down into very compartmentalized cells and they're structured that way for a reason -- to deter law enforcement and our ability to successfully penetrate them and dismantle them. If you take down one or two cells or three or four cells, even in a city like Chicago, or in Montreal, Ottawa, a larger city, anywhere in the world you have virtually no impact whatsoever. They can, just like a terrorist organization, they can regenerate very quickly. And if you just take off the arms and the legs or the digits, really, what you have is, or what you're faced with thereafter is something that usually looks totally different that you're now trying to attack.

The modern-day drug trafficking organization, just like the modern-day terrorist organization relies heavily on what I would refer to as the hallmarks of organized crime. If these people can't corrupt you, and they've got hundreds of millions dollars to do that, then they'll intimidate you by threatening to kill perhaps you and/or your family and your friends. And if that doesn't work, that's exactly what they'll do. They'll use extreme violence. And that allows them to continue to operate.

They use the latest in technology: cell phones, satellite phones, Blackberry technology or text message technology, if you will; more and more so now the internet. Much of this technology, by the way, is encrypted which makes it difficult for law enforcement, as well as intelligence services around the globe to counteract. They thrive in areas of the world where there are weak nation states. They seek out places like that around the world. If you look at the tri-border area in South America, happens to be one. Go to another part of the world, Afghanistan. They actually seek out places like that in the world, again, where there are weak nation states because they thrive in areas of the world where there are weak governments. It's set up that way by design.

And I happen to be one of those people that believes, after a long time in this business, that you absolutely can't fight one, meaning you can't fight terrorism, without fighting the narcotics industry the same way, or at the same time, and expect to win. It's just not going to happen. Our nation, our State Department, as a matter of fact, has identified 42 global terrorist organizations. The DEA, working with other agencies within our government, have identified at least 18, almost half of those global terrorist organizations that are involved in some aspect of drug trafficking activity to fund their operations.

That could be anything from taxing a farmer who is growing poppy or cocoa or marijuana, perhaps, to the other extreme, a terrorist organization that is involved in virtually every aspect of drug trafficking activity. And there are some of those that are out there. If you compare the two side by side, if I were to actually, on a blackboard in this room, draw the commonalities, lay them out side by side, there's only one difference, really, and that's when you get down to that last box and that's motivation.

Global terrorist organizations, for the most part, are driven by ideological reasons. Whether they be political, religious, or other, most of the world's global drug trafficking organizations are driven by greed, but it comes down to money. No matter what side of the list you happen to be on, it comes down to money. Terrorist organizations have to have money to conduct their operations, to strike out against us. There's a myriad way to finance their operations, whether it be untaxed cigarettes or smuggling aliens or involved in weapons trafficking. But I firmly believe that there's nothing out there that's going to provide the kinds of money that drug trafficking does, that global drug trafficking does at that kind of a scale.

The best estimates are that Americans, my fellow citizens, spend about $64 to $65 billion a year to satisfy their insatiable appetite for drugs. And I'm not going to stand here and tell you that most of that money is making its way into the coffers of terrorist organizations. I'm not about to say that. But I can tell you that certainly, that hundreds of millions of that money, if not more, is making its way into the war chests of terrorist organizations that are hell-bent on destroying our way of life and, I believe, the way of life found in any free and democratic society on the face of the earth.

So those are all things that I'm very concerned about, things that we're certainly going to be discussing at this year's IDEC conference. If you look at the first IDEC conference that was held in Panama City, Panama, 24 years ago, it was held in a room probably a quarter the size of this room. There were about six or eight participants all from the Western Hemisphere, because back in that day, when DEA was involved in an investigation, it typically connected the United States with perhaps Mexico or Colombia, one or two or three nations, and that was about it.

Can you remember that back in the 70s; I can remember it. I was out there. But if you flash forward now, DEA, on any given day of the week, is involved in our 220 domestic division offices and our 86 foreign offices. We're running anywhere between 80 to a hundred very, very complex transnational operations that, oftentimes, involve very complex and dangerous undercover work, as well as communications intercept activity under the strictest scrutiny of our judicial system.

But on most of these operations, we have, at a minimum, five countries involved in these types of operations, up to 20 or more countries, and that's why this conference is so very, very important; not only to maintain the outstanding relationships that the RCMP and DEA have worked so hard to build, not only amongst ourselves but amongst many of the nations around the world, but to even build on that further.

Last year -- I may not be exact, but I think I'm close -- I believe we had about 72 to 73 nations that were represented at last year's IDEC. This year, I believe we're going to be right around 80, maybe 81 or 82. The numbers are still floating in. But it is absolutely important that we continue to build on this program and build those relations, because if we can't do that, quite honestly, we're absolutely not going to be successful.

Now I've painted for you kind of a bleak, dark picture with some of the things that I was talking about. But quite honestly, the United States' drug strategy is a success story and let me tell you why. Because the professionals in law enforcement, prevention, and education and treatment have worked very, very hard over the past many, many years to control the problem of drug abuse and drug trafficking in our country. Today, there are somewhere between 45 to 50 percent fewer people abusing drugs in our country as there were in 1979 at the height of the problem in our country. That's something that you don't typically hear about on the evening news. There is this notion out there that we're losing the war on drugs. Well, folks, we absolutely are not losing the war on drugs.

If there was -- I'd like to say that if there were some international research group that had reduced the incidence of diabetes by 45 or 50 percent since 1979, somebody would be getting a Nobel Prize, okay? We don't need a pat on the back, but we do need to get the word out that we do have a success story on our hands. We're still losing far too many people to drugs and this agency is committed to continuing to attack the problem in a strategic way, focused on the world's most notorious drug trafficking organizations, of which there are about 45 that have been identified globally and all but about four or five of those, the key members within each of those organizations, all but about four or five are currently under indictment in the United States for federal drug charges.

I'll wrap up by just simply saying that I'm here as long as you need me. I'll answer as many questions as you have about the concerns that I voiced or anything else. If I don't have the answers, I do have some experts here with me that can get you the answers before we break today. Thank you.

MODERATOR: We can go to questions now. If you would wait for the mike and identify your name and organization.

QUESTION: Jose Lopez, Notimex news agency from Mexico. Mr. Braun, the latest international narcotics report voices concern about the increasing drug trafficking problem in Venezuela, especially the fact that the drug cartels in that country are using other countries to smuggle drugs through Europe and other regions. So I have a couple of questions. What's the status of your corporation with Venezuela on a day-to-day basis for illegal trafficking? And in the case of a seizure in Mexico, is this an isolated incident or are we talking about a Mexican connection of Venezuela drug trafficking in the region?

MR. BRAUN: Well, DEA has a presence in Venezuela. We have an office in Venezuela. We've been in Venezuela for many years. We've worked very closely with Venezuelan authorities and we've experienced many joint successes over the years. We are in the process right now working with our State Department or through our State Department with the Venezuelan Government to formalize a working agreement with the Venezuelan Government -- an implementing document -- I believe is what it's actually called. And I believe we're close to having that signed. And once that's signed, we'll be back in the game and working very closely with Venezuelan authorities.

With respect to the second part of your question, is there a connection between Venezuela and Mexico? Well, I mean, I -- the seizure of that DC-9 with 5.6 tons of cocaine on it, I think, is unequivocal proof that there is some kind of a connection there. But there are flights routinely out of the North Coast of Colombia and go-fast boats operations off the North Coast, I mean, the very sleek kind of cigarette boats that typically will carry about a ton or more of cocaine on them -- that are leaving the North Coast of Colombia and Ecuador and Venezuela and elsewhere that are making their way into Central America, the transit zone, Central America into Mexico and then into the United States. So I don't think we're seeing anything unusual here, with respect to drugs flowing out of Venezuela at this time. We're looking at it very closely.

QUESTION: My name is Armando with Azteca Television in Mexico. This same thing with Venezuela and Colombia and Mexico, have you seen the drug traffickers in Mexico becoming stronger of what they were a few years back? Yesterday we had a testimony in Congress by the State Department saying that Mexico has cooperated more with the United States in the last few years than ever before. Have you noticed that same thing? Is that something that you can share at the level of DEA and your operations? And how come if that is probably the case, how come we have more activity from drug traffickers inside Mexico?

MR. BRAUN: Well, I have to take you back in time a little bit. Let me first start by saying that we're experiencing unprecedented levels of cooperation with Mexican authorities under the Fox administration. We have close working relations with Mexico and we have to have, for the interest of both of our countries. But let me take you back in time and let me tell you what's happened over the last 20 years. If you go back to the late '70s to mid-'80s, really, you'll remember the Miami Vice TV episode and kind of the Miami Vice days. The primary corridor for moving drugs out of Colombia into the United States was referred to as the Caribbean route. Massive amounts of drugs going directly into -- oftentimes, into the northern parts of the Caribbean and then into Miami and South Florida or directly into Miami or South Florida; by boat, by plane, I mean, you name it. And what happened is President Bush, number one, who was vice president at the time, led the South Florida task force, basically. And that thing was so effective, law enforcement, the DEA, FBI, then customs, now ICE and others working very, very closely with our military and our counterparts throughout Mexico -- or excuse me -- throughout Central America and South America did such a great job that we forced major Colombian traffickers to make a shift.

They could not sustain the losses that they were taking in that Caribbean corridor, so what happened, in essence, was is they began to form very close relations with some major Mexican drug trafficking organizations for some obvious reasons. They share a common language. They knew that some of these Mexican traffickers that were responsible for moving, you know, marijuana -- back in those days, marijuana, heroin and, to a lesser degree, methamphetamine, across the border. They had established smuggling routes already across our border. It just made sense to partner up with these Mexican traffickers. And consequently, as a result of that, today about 90 percent of the drugs that are flowing out of South America make their way into oftentimes directly into Mexico, but if not directly, then into Central America and into Mexico and across our Southwest border now.

So that relation has really had a bolstering effect, if you will, on the Mexican trafficking organizations, provided them with an ability to make a lot more money and with that more money, they've got more money to corrupt on both sides of our border and they've got more money, you know, to build their organizations. And folks, you've got to understand something that global drug trafficking organizations operate just like Fortune 500 companies, okay.

Most of the Mexican drug trafficking organizations, if you go back 15 years in time, one syndicate was responsible for marijuana. That's all that they really dealt with. Another might have been responsible for heroin. That's all that they marketed. And then cocaine came on to the scene with this -- with these relations that they built with the Colombian traffickers, which opened a lot of doors for them. But for the most part now, they're all poly-drug organizations because, just like any Fortune 500 company, what you want to do is you want to expand your product line, if you will, for the sake of making more money. I know that's kind of a long-winded answer to what appeared to be a simple question, but that's how much of this has transpired over the years.

QUESTION: May I follow up?

MR. BRAUN: Yeah.

QUESTION: My follow up is if that is the case now if 90 percent of those drugs are flowing through Mexico, are coming into the United States and 100 percent is flowing inside the U.S., now who is operating that in the U.S. and how much influence have now Mexican drug organizations inside the U.S. in moving that drug across the country?

MR. BRAUN: Well, I want to start by saying this. The vast majority of folks in Mexico who are living in the United States are here legally and they're here working and they want to better the lives of themselves and their families. I mean, that's why they're here. But with that said, as the Mexican population has grown in -- all across the United States now, in my home state of Missouri, where I was born and raised, there is a large Mexican and Hispanic population that did not exist 20 years ago. Many of these folks have come into the country and they're taking on jobs that others walked away from -- the meat packing industry throughout the Midwest -- really caused an expansion of the Mexican population, the textile industry in the southeastern United States, massive expansion of the population.

Major Mexican drug trafficking organizations recognize that and they exploited it and leveraged it. These folks are very smart. And they began to establish this highly compartmentalized cell structure all over the United States. They are in places like Des Moines, Iowa, now, meaning the organizations. They're in Omaha, Nebraska. They are in Seattle, responsible for the vast majority of the heroine trafficking in the Hawaiian Islands, they're in Alaska, as far east as Guam and Micronesia. And they are making inroads into the northeastern United States which is very troubling. I mean, New York City traditionally was controlled by Colombian and Dominican drug trafficking organizations. The largest cocaine seizure, I believe, in our office's history in New York, over a ton of cocaine, was controlled by a Mexican drug trafficking organization. So that's how they've been able to expand their influence all across the United States.

Thank you.

QUESTION: Thank you. Tracey Wright with Global Television. I have a question -- a couple questions for the Assistant Commissioner. I'm just wondering, on the subject of methamphetamine, I believe in the United States the measures are being taken to limit the amount of products that people can go into a drugstore and buy, which can then be ephedrine, pseudo ephedrine, can be made into meth. I'm wondering if -- is that happening in Canada? Is that -- if not, is that something that you would want to see the federal government or provincial governments do?

MR. SOUCCAR: This is something we have discussed. In fact, I personally attended a meeting in Regina in June of 2005 with the Ministers -- provincial ministers, justice ministers in Regina, Saskatchewan. And we discussed these very issues. And there are several jurisdictions within Canada that are now doing this, not necessarily by law, but voluntarily putting these blister packs behind the counter. We find in Canada at this point in time that the vast majority of the labs at clandestine laboratories producing methamphetamine are economic-based labs and not addiction-based labs. In other words, there are labs that are producing ten pounds or more of methamphetamine for commercial purposes for sale, as opposed to for personal use. The blister packs themselves that you can acquire in drugstores will only produce a sufficient quantity for personal use as opposed for commercial use.

So I guess to answer your question is, yes, there are some measures being taken across Canada. The matter is still being discussed as to whether or not this will be done across Canada in all jurisdictions, but again, we find that the bulk of the labs that we find at this point are economic-based labs for commercial purposes.

QUESTION: So how are you attacking that from that larger perspective, the suppliers of the materials you need to make?

MR. SOUCCAR: We're attacking it from several fronts. As I said our approach and our strategy is both demand reduction and supply reduction, so education awareness is extremely important. And we're not doing this just with the users or the would-be traffickers, but also with the chemical industry. So we reach out to chemical companies that import and sell precursors that require ephedrine, pseudo ephedrine and so on, that are required to produce the large quantities of methamphetamine. We've got a ChemWatch program that I talked about at the outset, which we have several companies -- conferences a year with chemical companies where we have created a partnership to try to educate them and created a toll free number that they can call that if they think there's a suspicious transaction that's about to take place they will call us and let us know who purchased it or who's inquired about purchasing large amounts of chemicals.

We have the precursor control regulations that came in 2003 that has also placed certain precursors that are necessary ingredients for the manufacturing of methamphetamine within the precursor control regulations in a class that would be it, in a sense to purchase, in a sense to sell. We've got an inspector regime now where there is a report and mandatory reporting requirement for chemical companies to record transactions that are suspicious. But in addition to that we're looking to change that from a mandatory recording to a mandatory reporting requirement. So we're working with the Justice Department right now to see how doable that is in terms of changes to the legislation.

We have clan lab teams in our Canada drug strategy. We've created clan lab teams that are strategically located in centers where we think it's the greatest problem that we're encountering across Canada in the manufacturing of methamphetamine, so we've got these teams located. And their first priority, and their only focus is targeting criminal organizations that are involved in the manufacturing of methamphetamine and ecstasy.

QUESTION: Can you comment on the subject of terrorism, because you both have strongly made the link today between the drug trade and terrorism activities. Are you saying that in Canada there are terrorist organizations right now that are funded by drug trade activities in Canada?

MR. SOUCCAR: No, that's not necessarily what I'm saying. We have not -- I have no knowledge of a hand-to-hand transaction, for example, between one of our undercover operators and a terrorist organization. What I am saying, though, is that terrorist organizations will -- the only commonality a terrorist organization and a criminal organization has is at the end of day is funding, either for greed or for motivation of ideology and so on for terrorist ends. So you have terrorist organizations throughout the world that are attempting to raise sufficient funds in order to carry out their terrorist activities. So in the cocaine, the heroin, whatever it may be, that is produced in a foreign country may be smuggled into Canada, sold. The proceeds of the sale end up in the hands of the terrorist organization.

QUESTION: My name is Gregorio Meraz, reporter from Televisa news network from Mexico. You have mentioned that the use of top-of-the-line technology by the drug smuggler cartel have make more difficult to struggle against them. But what do you do in order to prevent that this technology got into the hands of the drug smugglers? What type of technologies -- I think most of it is originated in the U.S. Is that right?

MR. BRAUN: I wouldn't say that most of it's produced in the United States. I think the problem is, you know, this is kind of the price we pay for globalization. I mean much of this technology is available, if not in the United States, elsewhere. There are technologies -- communications technology, you know, that's being produced in Europe and Asia and other parts of the world that is, you know, just as good if not better than what we're able to manufacture and design right here in this country. The biggest challenge is that technology is moving along so fast that just trying to keep pace with the technology and often time with laws that were, in our country at least, the laws that are 30 and 40 and 50 years old that deal with law enforcement interception of communication. So those are just some real challenges for us.

QUESTION: I was not referring about communications but also the sophisticated weapons that we are seeing now they are using in Mexico for several executions.

MR. BRAUN: The sophisticated weapons such as -- I'm not sure I'm --

QUESTION: These sophisticated weapons like grenade launchers or rifles, machine guns, that -- I understand some of those maybe were stolen in U.S. military bases.

MR. BRAUN: I really don't know if those weapons were stolen from U.S. military bases. I can certainly tell you that those would not be classified as highly technical weapons by our military or, I think, by your military or any other military around the world; very effective weapons and certainly, the bad guys outgun the cops in your country and oftentimes in ours and I know in Canada and elsewhere, which is a problem that we're always concerned with. You know, police officers armed with a nine-millimeter or a .45 handgun going up against a grenade launcher or even an AK-47, you know, you're outgunned, you're in trouble immediately. And I think that that's what your officers, many of them, they paid the ultimate price because of it.

MODERATOR: We have a question from a colleague in New York.

QUESTION: Paula King from Semana magazine in Columbia. There are commentaries and analysis floating around that the Chinese and the Indian middle classes will be the next consumer class on all fronts: technology, fashion, flashy cars, all that. How about the Chinese and the Indian rising middle classes as the next big drug consumers? Is there worry or anxiety about that?

MR. SOUCCAR: Well, I think there is concern throughout the world when it comes to increased drug use. And again, this is why it becomes important, when we talk about a drug strategy that we're not talking about a one-prong drug strategy. We have to be talking about a multifaceted approach. We have to be talking about several pieces of the puzzle that have to be put together in order to deal with the concerns throughout the world. We can only be effective if we include not only enforcement, but education, awareness, treatment, and so on and we have to start this at a very young age.

And one thing that's very interesting is if you look today, for example, we're looking to bring about drug-impaired driving laws in Canada, and we have found that kids today are more likely to toke and drive than drink and drive, because we have, over the years, spent a lot of time educating about impaired driving and alcohol-induced fatal accidents and so on. So that's where education becomes very important. We have to step up our education portion at a very young age in the schools on drug use and I think if we do it collectively, and that's another thing the IDEC does, we learn from each other best practices on how to curb use.

MODERATOR: I think we have another question here.

QUESTION: Thank you, Global Television. For Mr. Braun, I'm just wondering, again, because you both talked about the connection to terrorist organizations, how is the DEA involved, if at all, when -- you know, we keep hearing about people around the world who are picked up and questioned and jailed, allegations of connections to terrorist organizations. Does the DEA get involved in that questioning to try and crack down on the drug trade?

MR. BRAUN: No. We are a single-mission agency, although we're multifaceted. I'll admit to that. We are a single-mission agency and that is -- we enforce the United States federal narcotics laws under Title 21, United States Code.

Whether it be domestic or overseas, because of the nexus that I described earlier, during many of our investigations, we find crossovers. We uncover or unveil information that is tied directly or indirectly to terrorism. And we have established very strict process and protocols to quickly pass that information to those agencies and organizations that are responsible for handling that kind of activity. And we will continue, often times, to work with those agencies. We will handle the narcotics and the financial investigative aspect of an investigation, as it relates to the narcotics angle, and work very closely with them while they're focused on the more -- I hate to say traditional, but traditional terrorist kind of an investigation

MODERATOR: Yes, sir.

QUESTION: Yes, Jose Lopez. On Mexico again, Mrs. Tandy the DEA administrator recently reported to Congress his intention to open a new money-laundering office in Mexico. I understand the DEA has requested, for a number of years, to increase its presence in Mexico and the Mexican Government has not allowed that to happen. Can we interpret Mrs. Tandy's remarks as a signal, as an indication by Mexico that they are willing to do so?

And may I ask a second question? The Mexican Government announced that they are planning to extradite to the U.S. major drug traffickers before the end of the year. Which would be the first big feature you would like to see here in the U.S.?

MR. BRAUN: Well, we happen to have a list prepared of about 22 traffickers that we'd love to see and -- but we have seen some very positive signs. About -- I think it was about a year-and-a-half ago, a person that was of great interest to us, a Mr. Vasquez Mendoza -- I think I got the name right -- was involved in the murder of a DEA agent during a very -- obviously a very dangerous undercover operation out in Arizona, several years. And I can tell you that we worked -- we knew he fled into Mexico. We worked very, very closely with the Mexican authorities and DEA has got a long memory.

You know, it took us over 10 years to -- in working with Mexican authorities to find this guy. He had moved into a very, very remote area of the country, but we did get our hands on him and the Mexican Government extradited this man -- I think it was about a year-and-a-half ago or so. And by the way, his trial -- I was just notified a couple days ago his trial for the murder of our special agent starts, I believe, in early May in Arizona.

To answer the first part of your question, if I got it right, when Ms. Tandy said we were opening a financial office, we're not opening an additional office. We're working very closely with Mexican authorities, working together on financial investigations. Hacienda authorities are all involved in this kind of joint working group, if you will. I believe that that's all she was really saying.

QUESTION: What is the number of agents there? Have you received any signal that this might happen before the end of the Fox administration?

MR. BRAUN: No, I personally haven't, no.

MODERATOR: Any further questions? Yes.

QUESTION: Hi, Sara, CBC. Just a quick question for both of you on Afghanistan. One of the parts of their new economy is the drug trade. What are you guys doing about that and what can you do?

MR. SOUCCAR: I'll give you a very short answer and then perhaps Mike might give you a more complete one. From a Canadian perspective, just so that you understand, the RCMP works a little different than the DEA, in that we work inside out. We work from Canada out. The DEA will very often work outside in and it's simply because of the number of resources they have internationally, as compared to the number of resources we have internationally.

So typically, we will target a criminal organization in Canada and if, in the process of the investigation, it takes us to a foreign country, well, so be it. We will be going to that foreign country and working with the foreign agency out there, either through wire intercepts, if they have that technology and the capacity and the legislation, through undercover means, whatever it may be, surveillance and so on. However, we will not go target a criminal organization in the foreign country as a first step. And then finally, in terms of -- we're not getting much Afghani heroin, for example, coming to Canada. Most of our heroin coming to Canada is southeast Asian-type heroin.

MR. BRAUN: DEA reestablished our presence in Afghanistan about two years ago. We actually entered Afghanistan and stood up an office there in the very early 1970s and were some of the last folks out the back door of the embassy in '79 as the Russians were coming through the front door. But with that said, we've reestablished our office about two years ago. On any given day of the week, we've got about 25 or 30 agents and analysts that are on the ground there. We're working very closely with counter-narcotics police, Afghanistan CNPA Alpha to build that institution, to build it into a viable institution, a professional, modern-day law enforcement institution. And we have made tremendous progress. We're really kind of surprised by it all.

Over just the last -- oh, I'd say eight months to a year, just some really phenomenal successes. We had the first Afghan -- I was going to say heroin trafficker, but in reality, the first Afghan ever extradited from the country to the United States, a guy by the name of Hajibas Mohama. I believe I've got the name correct, just check with me later and we'll make sure I did. We successfully also arrested, without a doubt, the region's most notorious drug trafficker, Haji Bashir Noorzai, who is responsible for distributing tons of heroin globally. The first gentleman that I issued was responsible -- his indictment basically read that he was responsible for exporting, importing, however you want to look at it, over $25 million worth of heroin into the United States over the course of several years.

We have worked hard, the Department of Justice and some really great Assistant U.S. Attorneys who were assigned in Afghanistan working daily, building the judicial piece to the operation. I have experienced just a phenomenal success just -- I think it was just last week with the first-ever conviction within Afghanistan, which referred to as their narcotics tribunal court, I believe. They're focused solely on prosecution of major traffickers within Afghanistan. They received their first conviction of three very high-ranking member -- or high-ranking heroin traffickers in Afghanistan and our agents, I'm proud to say, and our analysts were working shoulder to shoulder with our Afghan counterparts in putting those cases together.

As I think everyone in this room realizes, I mean, there's a tremendous threat posed by heroin trafficking in Afghanistan. The place is responsible for producing -- I believe it's 80 percent of the world's heroin. This past year, about -- I'm close on this number, about 500 potential yield of about 525 metric tons of heroin. Let me put that in perspective for you. Colombia, that provides about 60 -- between 50 and 60 percent of the heroin abused in our country today -- only produces about eight metric tons of potentially -- of finished product. Mexico, our second-biggest source in this country, produces about -- I think it's about 13 or 15 metric tons.

So what we're very concerned about, and the reason we have such a presence in the country -- a couple reasons, but primarily, if you go back -- flash back in time again -- let me take you back in time. If you go back 10 years ago in this country, the vast majority of the heroin abused by heroin addicts and abusers in our country came from southeast, southwest Asia, from that part of the world. Colombian traffickers really turned that whole market around and garnered control of it about -- well, over the last 10 years. Because we're making such tremendous impact against the Colombian traffickers with the Colombia National Police, we've absolutely got to keep our eye on the ball and we've got to be involved over there, because we don't want it creeping right back through the back door and facing us with that problem. And I know the RCMP shares many of the same concerns.

MR. SOUCCAR: Let me just -- there is one thing that I neglected to mention to you that I should have, in terms of what we're doing in Afghanistan. And I -- when I answered your question, I focused from an investigative perspective alone. We've got currently, as part of the PRT, the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Kandahar, Afghanistan, we've got six RCMP members working there and I'm hopeful that we will be able to send four more to meet the commitment of 10 and perhaps, as time goes on, more will be needed. And we have one in Kabul.

As part of the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Kandahar, their mission -- the RCMP members in Kandahar, their mission is to work with the local police, local law enforcement in order to try and get them to a level that they should be at to perform their duties in a more effective and an efficient manner; so, providing assistance, training, mentoring, so on and so forth, working with them. We're also looking at providing some drug training, so sending members of the RCMP to Afghanistan for the sole purpose of providing drug training and mentoring in Afghanistan and then coming back. That would not be on a permanent basis, but on an as-needed basis. The members in Kandahar and in Kabul are there permanently.