US government has paid US$108 million to ‘snitches’ since 1985 in lucrative bounty scheme to bring down drug kingpins
- Critics of the government’s rewards programmes warn that huge cash bounties increase cartel violence and encourage corruption
- Government defends programme saying 70 ‘major violators’ have been caught, but critics say there’s ‘no accountability’
Wheeling gold-coloured Samsonite suitcases stuffed with US$100 bills, two undercover agents for the US Drug Enforcement Administration walked into a Mexico City hotel room.
Minutes later, a low-level drug trafficker knocked. The agents watched as he removed US$10,000 bundles from the cases, placing them one by one on the bed – US$2 million eventually spread across the mattress. The man then signed a receipt, gathered his cash and left.
The year was 1994. The deal, recounted by former DEA agent Mike Vigil, may sound like it was lifted from an episode of Narcos. But in the world of ultra-high-value drug informants, it’s the grim calculus governing America’s long, failed effort to stem the flow of narcotics into the country.
Recently, however, the rate at which traffickers have been double-crossing their bosses in exchange for riches has risen. One reason may be renewed emphasis on the three-decade-old State Department programme to pay millions to snitches.
Exploiting the temptation to become an overnight multimillionaire is what the Narcotics Rewards Programme (NRP) is about. In the past five years, it has distributed almost US$32 million to 33 people, with some receiving as much as US$5 million, according to the department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs.