Q&A with former Homeland Counternarcotics director, now with Dallas law firm

12:00 AM CDT on Sunday, May 31, 2009
By JASON TRAHAN / The Dallas Morning News
jtrahan@dallasnews.com

A former high-level Justice Department lawyer has set up shop in Dallas.

Uttam Dhillon, former director of the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Counternarcotics Enforcement, recently relocated to the Dallas area and joined the law firm of Fitzpatrick Hagood Smith & Uhl LLP.

We took the opportunity to query him about narcotics trafficking.



What were some issues you dealt with in counternarcotics?

Our main goal was to coordinate the counter-drug efforts on our side of the border. We also did northern border and maritime strategies and dealt with low-flying aircraft and submarines.

So they're using real subs?

Actually, they're called semi-submersibles. They have become a common means of trafficking drugs into the U.S. The narcotics traffickers have been experimenting over the years with boats that are not fully underwater, but almost. They're akin to subs. We first saw them being towed by boats, but lately we've seen them with their own propulsion systems and the ability to navigate. They carry multi-ton quantities of cocaine.


How close are these getting to shore?

Sometimes they meet up offshore with another boat. The big advantage for the traffickers is they can't be seen on the water. That makes the job of the Coast Guard much more difficult. It's difficult enough to spot a small boat. ... Some of these are coming out of Colombia, but we know that there are places in drug-producing nations where they manufacture these. Narcotics traffickers have essentially an unlimited amount of cash to experiment with.

Drugs are one thing, but you can put something really dangerous into one of these things. This is a real threat to our national security, the potential terrorist purposes.


Other worries?

One of the things I worked hardest on was getting all ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents Title 21 authority, which means they can investigate drug crimes. Right now, only some of them have that authority, which is the authority that DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) and the FBI have. ICE has the authority to investigate contraband, but only a small number of agents have the authority to investigate drugs. The last thing we need to be doing is limiting the number of federal agents investigating drug crimes.

If you keep drugs out of the country, you keep a lot of other bad things out. Good dope enforcement policy is good law enforcement policy at the border. The more people focus on that, the safer our country is.


http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... b4363.html