Pubdate: Sun, 12 Jan 2014
Source: Houston Chronicle (TX)
Copyright: 2014 Houston Chronicle Publishing Company Division
Contact:  http://www.chron.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/198
Author: Dane Schiller
Page: B1

RETIRED DEA HEAD TALKS DAYS OF CHASING KINGPINS

Javier Pena, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Houston
Division, retired Saturday after a 30-year career. The Texas native
recently spoke with Houston Chronicle reporter Dane Schiller. Here are
edited excerpts from that conversation:

Q: What do you make of legalizing pot in Colorado?

A: We see the effects it has on people. I'm against legalization. Some
states aren't, and that is a political fight. Will Texas ever? I hope
not.

Q: Does it make you angry?

A: It is frustrating on the law enforcement side of the house. If you
are a parent, do you want your kid to be smoking, especially this
highly potent type of marijuana?

Q: Any advice for stopping drug abuse?

A: A lot of the solution is in the socialization process, talking to
kids. We try to tell kids don't use this stuff, it is bad.

Q: How is it that Houston is considered a hub for drug cartels? Do
they have people based here?

A: They are here as far as the workers, the cell heads, the
transportation people, the money launderers.

Q: Many wealthy people from Mexico have moved to this area. Does that
include members of organized crime?

A: One of the most alarming things I have seen, in the last five
years, is the influx of Mexican traffickers who are buying up tons of
assets here in this area - properties, houses, ranches, businesses,
shopping malls - millions of dollars of trafficking funds being
reinvested in the U.S.

Q: Why don't you go after them?

A: That is what we are trying to do.

Q: But you know where they are, where they live and
work.

A: We have our intelligence, but proving it is another thing. It can
take years.

Q: As for Pablo Escobar, what is his legacy?

A: He invented narcoterrorism. All his terrorism was about not getting
extradited to the U.S.

Q: How hard was it to watch him make a deal with the Colombian
government so that he could surrender to his own private luxury
prison, where he picked his own guards and the government could not
enter?

A: That was amazing because we had been chasing him for about six
years and the killings, the atrocities, the killing of innocent
civilians that he was responsible for - thousands of innocent people
died.

Q: What is the biggest lesson the DEA learned from
Escobar?

A: No matter how powerful they are, you have to go after them. No
matter how big, powerful or how much money - you cannot back down. He
declared war on Colombia and that we did see.

Q: Do you stay in touch with any of the Colombians you worked
with?

A: Yes, a couple of guys. The (team) was made of the best Colombian
cops, and their only mission was to get Escobar. I lived with them,
stayed with them. We exchanged a lot of information. Some guys are
dead. Some guys made it up to be generals. The major who was
responsible for the death of Escobar is in prison right now. He later
became the governor of a state in Colombia and got caught helping a
paramilitary group fight (rebels.)

Q: It seems that the latest generation of Latin American drug lords
learned from Escobar's story that they should keep a low profile.

A: With Escobar, it was the Wild Wild West - jewelry, bodyguards,
whatever they wanted to do. Escobar in his heyday had 60 body guards
at any time. The lavish parties. Big ranches. Money was not a problem
so they would ... show it off.

Q: You actually slept in one of Escobar's rooms after he had fled.
What is something you learned about him as a person?

A: He had a thing for bathrooms. They had to be immaculate, even in
his ranches and jungle houses.

Q: Escobar is history, but Americans still get all the drugs they
could want. Has the amount of cocaine here changed?

A: We are seeing less (cocaine) in the U.S. The prices have really
gone up. In Houston it is in the mid 20s. Ten years ago here ... it
was $13,000 to $15,000.
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