MIAMI (AP) — The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration quietly fired its high official in Mexico final yr over improper contact with drug trafficker attorneys, an embarrassing finish to a quick tenure introduced on by deteriorating cooperation between international locations and a report circulation of cocaine , heroin and fentanyl throughout the border.
Nicholas Palmeri’s contacts and holidays with Miami drug legal professionals, detailed in confidential data considered by The Related Press, led to his eventual demise after only a yr as DEA’s highly effective regional director, overseeing dozens of brokers in Mexico, Central America and Canada .
However separate inside investigations raised different purple flags, together with complaints about lax dealing with of the coronavirus pandemic, which led to 2 sick brokers having to be flown in another country. And one other, revealed final week, famous that Palmeri licensed the usage of anti-drug funds for improper functions and demanded a refund for his personal party.
“The place of regional director in Mexico is an important one in DEA’s worldwide operations, and when that occurs it is disruptive,” mentioned Mike Vigil, former head of DEA’s worldwide operations.
“It is much more vital due to the deteriorating state of affairs with Mexico,” added Phil Jordan, a former director of the DEA’s El Paso Intelligence Heart. “If we do not have a powerful regional director or agent in cost there, it negatively impacts the company’s general operations as a result of the whole lot is transported by means of Mexico, whether or not it is coming from Colombia or the fentanyl coming in by means of China. This isn’t to be taken frivolously.”
Palmeri’s case provides to a rising litany of wrongdoing Shaking up the nation’s main narcotics regulation enforcement company at a time when its sprawling abroad operations — which span 69 international locations — are underneath scrutiny by an exterior overview ordered by DEA Administrator Anne Milgram.
This overview got here in response to the case of Jose Irizarry, a disgraced former agent who’s now serving a 12-year federal sentence after confessing to laundering cash for Colombian drug cartels and siphoning tens of millions from confiscations, as a way to take a global jaunt to fund jet-setting events and prostitutes.
Palmeri’s misconduct can be the second case in current months that sheds mild on the customarily cozy interactions between DEA officers and Miami attorneys representing a few of Latin America’s largest drug traffickers and cash launderers. Final yr, federal prosecutors charged a DEA agent and former supervisor with leaking confidential regulation enforcement info to 2 unnamed Miami protection attorneys in change for $70,000 in money.
A type of attorneys, recognized by present and former US officers as David Macey, was additionally concerned within the Palmeri investigation. Inside data present that Macey hosted Palmeri and his Mexican-born spouse at his residence within the Florida Keys for 2 days — a visit the DEA mentioned served no helpful work goal and violated legal professional interplay guidelines aimed toward doing so, too simply to keep away from the looks of impropriety.
Palmeri, 52, admitted to investigators that he stayed at Macey’s escape residence, that his spouse labored as a translator for an additional distinguished human trafficking legal professional, Ruben Oliva, and that he and his spouse made an unauthorized journey to Miami in February 2021 undertook.
The alleged goal of the Miami journey was to “debrief” a confidential supply. Nevertheless it passed off at a non-public residence, the place Palmeri confirmed up together with his spouse – and a bottle of wine, in keeping with the inner report.
“The assembly had the looks of a social interplay with a confidential supply,” the investigators wrote, “and there was no contemporaneous official DEA documentation on the content material of the debrief, each of which violate DEA pointers.”
These violations led to Palmeri’s abrupt switch to Washington headquarters in Could 2021, earlier than finally resigning final March.
The DEA wouldn’t talk about the main points of Palmeri’s downfall or why he was allowed to retire reasonably than be fired. Nonetheless, an official mentioned the company has “zero tolerance for improper contacts between protection attorneys and DEA staff.”
“The DEA is aggressively investigating this critical misconduct and taking decisive motion, together with removing, towards staff who have interaction in it,” the official advised the AP.
For his half, Palmeri described the misconduct investigation as a “witch hunt” sparked by private jealousies that he declined to elaborate on and “an ill-conceived narrative to take away me from my place.”
Palmeri added that every one of his spending in Mexico is “cheap” and advantages the US authorities, and that any violations are minor and may be simply corrected.
“It’s ironic,” Palmeri wrote in an electronic mail, “that the Justice Division is doing this injustice to the nation.”
Macey didn’t reply to requests for remark. Oliva advised AP that the interpretation work Palmeri’s spouse did for him was “solely impartial” of Palmeri and that he “by no means met a extra moral, diligent and extremely efficient narcotics officer.”
A former New York Metropolis police officer, Palmeri raised eyebrows from the second he arrived in Mexico in 2020. Some brokers mentioned he was unqualified for the managerial position, rose by means of his connections to headquarters, and even confirmed up on the US embassy in sweatpants.
Others have complained about his near-obsessive seek for Rafael Caro Quintero, the infamous drug lord behind the 1985 assassination of a US DEA agent. Palmeri prioritized Quintero’s seize over the company’s much less conspicuous efforts to stem the circulation of Chinese language precursor chemical compounds used Fentanyl is now flooding the border. Quintero was finally taken into custody final summer season, months after the DEA recalled Palmeri to Washington.
Chris Landau, who oversaw Palmeri as US ambassador to Mexico throughout the Trump administration, mentioned the distinctive concentrate on Quintero and different such high-profile arrests is attribute of the DEA’s general failure within the drug struggle.
Landau cited the surprising 2020 US arrest of a former protection secretary, Normal Salvador Cienfuegos, which prompted Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to disband the elite police pressure that was the DEA’s key ally. López Obrador additionally rammed by means of a nationwide safety regulation that retains DEA brokers at their desks as a substitute of out within the discipline. In a single day, regulation enforcement cooperation between neighboring international locations went from strained and patchy to nonexistent.
“Sadly, within the absence of a broader technique, DEA is driving the US drug coverage bus, and it is a very slender lane they’re touring in,” Landau mentioned. “It is not going to transfer the needle when it comes to stemming the circulation of medicine into the US and infrequently have generally devastating overseas coverage ramifications.”
Palmeri was additionally criticized for his dealing with of coronavirus procedures in 2020, when federal brokers had been ordered to keep away from in-person conferences and pointless journey. A number of brokers underneath Palmeri’s command, together with a deputy regional director, contracted COVID-19 after a gathering on the DEA workplace within the resort city of Mazatlán, the place some brokers say they had been admonished or taunted for carrying masks.
Two brokers grew to become so unwell they needed to be flown in another country, in keeping with two former US officers, who weren’t licensed to debate the controversy and spoke to the AP on situation of anonymity.
A report by the Workplace of Inspector Normal launched final week additionally discovered that Palmeri misused authorities funds to pay for issues like his personal party and licensed the then-acting DEA administrator to buy “prohibited gadgets” as a part of overseas journey. Tim Shea, who held the place throughout Palmeri’s tenure, didn’t reply to requests for remark.
The report, which gave no particulars on particular gadgets or quantities spent, additionally didn’t clarify its conclusion: “The regional director was not prosecuted.”
___
Mustian reported from New York.
___
Contact AP’s world investigative group at investigative@ap.org or https://www.ap.org/suggestions/