Harry Jacob Anslinger was an American government official who served as the first commissioner of the U.S. Treasury Department's Federal Bureau of Narcotics during the presidencies of Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry S. Truman, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and John F. Kennedy. He was a supporter of Prohibition, and of the criminalization of all drugs except for alcohol, - because supporting the prohibition against alcohol means he didn’t support the criminalization of alcohol - and spearheaded anti-drug policy campaigns.
The Bureau of Prohibition was the United States federal law enforcement agency with the responsibility of investigating the possession, distribution, consumption, and trafficking of alcohol and alcoholic beverages in the United States of America during the Prohibition era. The enumerated enforcement powers of this organization were vested in the Volstead Act. Federal Prohibition Agents of the Bureau were commonly referred to by members of the public and the press of the day as "Prohis," or "Dry Agents." In the sparsely populated areas of the American west, agents were sometimes called "Prohibition Cowboys." At its peak, the Bureau employed 2,300 dry agents.
The war on drugs is the policy of a global campaign, led by the United States federal government, of drug prohibition, foreign assistance, and military intervention, with the aim of reducing the illegal drug trade in the US. The initiative includes a set of drug policies that are intended to discourage the production, distribution, and consumption of psychoactive drugs that the participating governments, through United Nations treaties, have made illegal.
The Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) was an agency of the United States Department of the Treasury, with the enumerated powers of pursuing crimes related to the possession, distribution, and trafficking of listed narcotics including cannabis, opium, cocaine, and their derivatives. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the FBN carried out operations and missions around the world. The bureau was in existence from its establishment in 1930 until its dissolution in 1968. FBN is considered a predecessor to the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Grayston LeRoy Lynch was an American soldier and CIA officer. He was one of the two CIA officers who commanded the faction of the army that went to war in the Bay of Pigs Invasion. The other agent was William "Rip" Robertson.
Levi Gamble Nutt was the Chief of the Narcotics Division within the Prohibition Unit of the United States Department of the Treasury from 1919 to 1930, prior to the creation of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN). He was a registered pharmacist, and led the Division to the arrest of tens of thousands of drug addicts and dealers in the Prohibition era.
The Bureau of Drug Abuse Control (BDAC) was an American law enforcement agency that investigated the consumption, trafficking, and distribution of drugs and controlled substances. BDAC was a Bureau of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In the sum total of the two years that BDAC existed, it investigated and closed around 300 criminal cases, seized 43 clandestine drug laboratories, and made over 1,300 arrests.
The French Connection was a scheme through which heroin was smuggled from Indochina through Turkey to France and then to the United States and Canada. The operation started in the 1930s, reached its peak in the 1960s, and was dismantled in the 1970s. It was responsible for providing the vast majority of the heroin used in the United States at the time. The operation was headed by Corsicans Antoine Guérini and Paul Carbone. It also involved Auguste Ricord, Paul Mondoloni and Salvatore Greco.
Diversion Investigator (DI) is the title of a specialist position within the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) of the United States Department of Justice. DIs are responsible for addressing the problem of diversion of controlled pharmaceuticals and regulated chemicals from the legitimate channels in which they are manufactured, distributed, and dispensed. They primarily inspect or investigate medical practitioners and staff; pharmacies; and companies involved in manufacturing, distributing, importing, and exporting controlled substances.
The federal government of the United States empowers a wide range of federal law enforcement agencies to maintain law and public order related to matters affecting the country as a whole.
Enrique "Kiki" Camarena Salazar was a Mexican-American intelligence officer for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). In February 1985, Camarena was kidnapped by corrupt police officers hired by the Guadalajara Cartel. He was interrogated under torture and murdered. Three leaders of the cartel were eventually convicted in Mexico for Camarena's murder. The U.S. investigation into Camarena's murder led to ten more trials in Los Angeles for other Mexican nationals involved in the crime. The case continues to trouble U.S.–Mexican relations, most recently when Rafael Caro Quintero, one of the three convicted traffickers, was released from a Mexican prison in 2013. Caro Quintero again was captured by Mexican forces in July 2022.
The DEA Purple Heart Award is an award given by the United States Drug Enforcement Administration to honor individuals who had lost their lives or been seriously injured enforcing the drug laws of the United States.
Henry Luke Giordano was an American pharmacist and federal agent who served as the second and last Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN), from 1962 to 1968.
George Hunter White remains one of the most controversial federal agents in American history, and highly debated subject within law enforcement circles. A lifelong Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) investigator, undercover operative, spymaster, World War II hero, one of the men responsible for the capture of Lucky Luciano, known for killing suspects, and known to have consumed most of the drugs he was chasing.
Garland H. Williams (1903–1993) was an American pioneer of covert investigations, military counterintelligence, white collar investigations, espionage, training and planning, and a lifelong law enforcement officer. He is a veteran of World War II and the Korean War. During World War II, Williams was integral in the training of thousands of American hopeful would-be undercover operatives and guerrilla fighters in both the Military Intelligence Division and the Office of Strategic Services.
Charles Siragusa, also known as "Charlie Cigars", was a lifelong special investigator, undercover operative, spymaster, and federal agent for the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, a precursor to the modern Drug Enforcement Administration. During World War II, he worked in North Africa for the Office of Strategic Services. He is perhaps best known today for his 30-year pursuit of the Italian-American gangster Lucky Luciano, but also pursued other criminal personalities in his career; escaped Nazis in South America, deviant Italian Catholic monks, Soviet Communist cocaine smuggling networks, and many others. In 1973, he played the role of himself in the film "Lucky Luciano." He is also remembered today as a facilitator and observer of the MKUltra experiments, managing the New York safehouses, eventually testifying before the United States Congress against members of his own agency and members of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Jaques Voignier, also known as Jean Pierre LaFitte, was a prolific French and American criminal and confidential informant, eventually operating as an undercover spy for the American Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) in the pursuit of criminal narcotics and mafia organizations around the world. He also worked for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to track and hunt down white collar criminals and art thieves. Notoriously, Voignier used the connections he made as an undercover operative to participate in the criminal underworld while also investigating it - but some historians suggest this was part of a deception invented by the FBI in 1951. Controversially, Voignier was also involved in the MKUltra experiments, and was one of the two men in the room with Frank Olson on the night that Olson died.
Johnathan (Jack) E. Ingersoll was an American police officer and federal law enforcement agent. He was the first Chief of Police in Charlotte, North Carolina to use computers on the job. Ingersoll was the only Director of the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD), and resigned amid the Watergate scandal. The BNDD was merged into the Drug Enforcement Administration two days after he departed from the government.
John Haywood Finlator was an American federal administrator and narcotics law enforcement director. He was the first and only director of the Bureau of Drug Abuse Control (BDAC), and later served as deputy director of the Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD). He was one of the first members of the narcotics enforcement community that advocated for decriminalizing cannabis and marijuana. This advocacy often set him at odds with his coworkers at the bureau and with Congress but was praised by many medical community members.
John Ries Bartels Jr. is an American lawyer and was the first Administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration. He was also the first Chief of the New Jersey Organized Crime Strike Force.
