Credential used by FBN special agent Robert S. Obrien
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.[1] Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the FBN carried out operations and missions around the world.[2] 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.[3]
The Federal Bureau of Narcotics was the brainchild of Colonel Levi G. Nutt, who had for two decades been the head of the Bureau of Prohibition Narcotics Division.[6] In June of 1930, Nutt was appointed by President Hoover to be the first Commissioner of Narcotics.[7] 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.[8] However, Nutt was hit with a scandal that rocked him.[9] In February 1930, after the investigation was concluded, a grand jury found no criminal impairment of Narcotics Division activities, but the flak was too much for the government.[9] In March 1930, Nutt was demoted to Field Supervisor.[10] In September, his duties were passed on to Harry J. Anslinger, the future Commissioner of the FBN.[9]
Special Agent Mansel Ross Burrell. December 19, 1967. Gunfire.
Special Agent Wilson Michael Shee. December 12, 1957. Gunfire
District Supervisor Anker Marius Bangs. September 24, 1950. Gunfire.
Agent Andrew P. Sanderson. September 23, 1944. Automobile crash.
Inspector Spencer Stafford. Thursday, February 7, 1935. Gunfire.
Agent John W. Crozier. November 16, 1934. Automobile crash.
Harry Anslinger
Harry J. Anslinger was the "personification of the antinarcotic regime," and ran the bureau for the majority of its existence. He had been the Assistant Commissioner of the Bureau of Prohibition and took over the Bureau's Narcotic Division in 1929.[12]
With the establishment of the FBN a year later, Anslinger was appointed the first Narcotics Commissioner of the United States by Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon.[12]
Under Anslinger, the FBN lobbied for harsh penalties for drug usage.[13][14] He had little regard for addicts, saying once: "The best cure for addiction? Never let it happen."[12] This problematic slogan is similar to the phrase "just say no." He is also quoted as saying: "We intend to get the killer-pushers and their willing customers out of selling and buying drugs... The answer to the problem is simple—get rid of drugs, pushers and users. Period."[12]
This approach treated all users equally, and did not differentiate casual usage from clinically defined addiction. According to Anslinger, all usage of narcotics was a criminal act.[12]
In this article, Harney defined marijuana as being the ground substance of the plant called cannabis.[1] Marijuana was not originally intended by the agency as a word to refer to the cannabis plant.[1]
Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday singing in 1947
FBN Special Agent George Hunter White arrested jazz singer Billie Holiday at the Mark Twin Hotel in San Francisco.[15] At a conference of the DEA in 2014, historian John C. McWilliams presented the evidence that White consumed most of the narcotics he was pursuing. [13][14] He was most likely high when he arrested Holiday for possession. [15]
Years later, in 1959, Holiday died in police custody, handcuffed to a hospital bed and surrounded by FBN agents.[15] The agents did not allow her to see family or friends, and denied her doctors from administering methodone.[15]
In the Spring of that year, White became one of the cadre of instructors at the COI schoolhouses in Washington, D.C. under the command of his FBN Supervisor and COI Training Director Garland H. Williams, where he taught counterintelligence to hundreds of would-be and hopeful undercover operatives and guerrilla warfighters.[21][17] Those operatives and operators who were successful were then deployed all around the world to fight the Axis powers.[17]
Another effort that OSS and the FBN undertook during the war was the pursuit of the Nazi "truth drug," or "T drug," and the two agencies collaborated in experiments on unwitting American citizens to see the effects of certain narcotics.[13][14] These experiments primarily targeted gangsters, pimps, prostitutes, and other "undesirable" classes of American citizens.[13][14] FBN agents would dose their targets with narcotics against their knowledge, and document what would happen over the course of several months to years.[13][14] These experiments would eventually become a part of Operation Midnight Climax, part of the umbrella MKUltra program, managed by FBN special agent George Hunter White and CIA chemist Sidney Gottlieb. [13][14][22] These experiments lasted into the 1960s, and are allegedly responsible for the death of Frank Olson.
The French Connection
In 1934, an FBN field report indicated that heroin in New York was being distributed from Corsica.[23][24] The "connection" refers to the relationship between the Corsican Brotherhood and the Sicilian Mafia. The FBN was the major American federal law enforcement agency responsible for uncovering the networks of the French Connection.[23][24]
By the 1950s and 1960s, over 80 percent of all heroin consumed in the United States was originated in Southern France, distributed by the Unione Corse. These drugs were shipped to the USA through Cuba.[23][24] FBN agents were routinely sent to Cuba during the 50s, and FBN undercover operative Jacques Voignier was stationed in Cuba with the dual assignment to gather information for the CIA on an unknown Cuban operator named Fidel Castro.[25]
Lucky Luciano
Lucky Luciano mugshot
FBN agents immediately resumed to full-time status at the end of the war, and Anslinger gave Garland H. Williams and George Hunter White the assignment to track down and bring to justice Lucky Luciano - the Italian Chicago mob boss that the OSS and the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) had heavily depended on to guarantee safety of shipbuilding in Chicago and New York.[13][14][26] ONI and OSS during the war had also used Luciano as an asset to ensure protection of American forces by the Italian criminal underworld as they invaded the country and advanced northward against the Germans.[26][27]
Lucky Luciano had still been running his mob from behind bars, but the US granted him reduced sentence in 1945 for "wartime services to the country."[26] Williams charged that three months after Luciano's return [to Italy] from Cuba in 1947, the first large shipment of heroin, worth $250,000, was smuggled into the United States. -- The Luciano Story[26]
In 1950, special agent Charles Siragusa was assigned to take over the hunt for Luciano from White and Williams.[28][29] The hunt for Luciano would dominate the next decade of his life. On one particular occasion, Luciano was asked by a group of reporters what he would like for Christmas. His response was "Siragusa in a ton of cement!" [30] Luciano died in Naples from a heart attack before Siragusa could bring a case against him. Siragusa later starred as himself in the 1973 film Lucky Luciano.[31]
Overseas offices
The FBN over time established several offices overseas in;
Other hotspots of international narcotics smuggling also maintained offices.[32]
These internationally deployed special agents (never totaling more than 17 at one time) cooperated with local drug enforcement agencies in gathering intelligence on smugglers and also made undercover busts locally.[32]
Vietnam War
The work against heroin and opium was however hamstrung by US foreign policy considerations: during the Vietnam War for instance great importance was placed on investigating minor Vietnamese smugglers that could be connected to the resistance while investigations of large scale smugglers from the US ally Thailand were left unfinished.[12]
In Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents, the FBN was sued for violating the 4th Amendment rights of Bivens, through the illegal search and seizure of drugs without a warrant.[35]
↑ Study, Institute of Medicine (US) Committee for the Substance Abuse Coverage; Gerstein, Dean R.; Harwood, Henrick J. (1992), "A Century of American Narcotic Policy", Treating Drug Problems: Volume 2: Commissioned Papers on Historical, Institutional, and Economic Contexts of Drug Treatment, National Academies Press (US), retrieved 2024-08-19
1 2 3 4 5 6 Gerstein, Dean R.; Harwood, Henrick J. (1992), "A Century of American Narcotic Policy", Treating Drug Problems: Volume 2: Commissioned Papers on Historical, Institutional, and Economic Contexts of Drug Treatment, National Academies Press (US), retrieved 2024-08-16
The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, Pub. L.Tooltip Public Law 75–238, 50 Stat. 551, enacted August 2, 1937, was a United States Act that placed a tax on the sale of cannabis. The H.R. 6385 act was drafted by Harry Anslinger and introduced by Rep. Robert L. Doughton of North Carolina, on April 14, 1937. The Seventy-fifth United States Congress held hearings on April 27, 28, 29th, 30th, and May 4, 1937. Upon the congressional hearings confirmation, the H.R. 6385 act was redrafted as H.R. 6906 and introduced with House Report 792. The Act is referred to, using the modern spelling, as the 1937 Marijuana Tax Act. It was overturned in 1969 in Leary v. United States, and was repealed by Congress the next year.
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, 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, military aid, and military intervention, with the aim of reducing the illegal drug trade in the United States. 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 Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs (BNDD) was a federal law enforcement agency within the United States Department of Justice with the enumerated power of investigating the consumption, trafficking, and distribution of narcotics and dangerous drugs. BNDD is the direct predecessor of the modern Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
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 United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has been accused of involvement in the trafficking of illicit drugs. Books and journalistic investigations on the subject that have received general notice include works by the historian Alfred McCoy, professor and diplomat Peter Dale Scott, journalists Gary Webb and Alexander Cockburn, and writer Larry Collins. These claims have led to investigations by the United States government, including hearings and reports by the United States House of Representatives, Senate, Department of Justice, and the CIA's Inspector General. The various investigations have generally not led to clear conclusions that the CIA itself has directly conducted drug trafficking operations, although there may have been instances of indirect complicity in the activities of others.
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.
The National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws developed the Uniform State Narcotic Drug Act in 1934 due to the lack of restrictions in the Harrison Act of 1914. The Harrison Act was a revenue-producing act and, while it provided penalties for violations, it did not give authority to the states to exercise police power regarding either seizure of drugs used in illicit trade or punishment of those responsible.
This is a history of drug prohibition in the United States.
Lucky Luciano is a 1973 Italian/French/US international co-production crime film about the Sicilian-American gangster Charles “Lucky” Luciano, played by Gian Maria Volonté. It is directed by Francesco Rosi, and written by Rosi, Tonino Guerra, Lino Iannuzzi, and Jerome Chodorov. The cast also stars Rod Steiger, Vincent Gardenia, Charles Cioffi, and Edmond O'Brien. Charles Siragusa, one of the real-life federal narcotics agents who pursued Luciano, plays himself in the film and also served as technical consultant. The film is a French and Italian co-production, filmed on-location in Italy and New York City.
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.
Malachi Lawrence Harney was an American federal law enforcement investigator for the United States Department of the Treasury and the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and the coauthor of several nonfiction books related to law enforcement with John C. Cross. During the Prohibition era, Harney was Eliot Ness's boss at Treasury, responsible for the arrest and capture of Al Capone. Later in his career, Harney was one of the strongest advocates of anti-drug policies in the United States, publishing articles and giving speeches espousing the drug war.
The Federal Narcotics Control Board (FNCB) was a Prohibition era senior level law enforcement-related organization established by the United States Congress as part of the Narcotic Drugs Import and Export Act on 26 May 1922. The Board was composed of the Secretaries of State, Treasury, and Commerce.
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.
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