FROM: Margaret.Anthony@posttimes.com

TO: David.Dain@posttimes.com

SUBJ: FILING [hed] Drug Corruption Rampant in West, Say Militia Members

DATE: November 9

[dateline] Colorado Springs, CO

The Army has long known that Western militia groups are financed by the drug trade, and has launched several campaigns to cut off those funds. But according to interviews with one such militia, while insurgents do depend on drug money, for the cartels the militias are little more than a backup to their main strategy: bribery.

“It’s a carrot-and-stick business,” says one militia leader. “We’re the stick, but it’s much less messy for them to use the carrot.”

When a drug shipment reaches an Army checkpoint, its driver will offer the soldiers there a bribe, usually about $450 a man. In most cases, according to militiamen, the bribe is accepted and the shipment passes through.

“GIs know that if they don’t take the money we’re watching and we’ll start shooting. Then the stuff will go someplace else and some other road crew will take the money, so they figure why bother being honest,” says the militia leader.

The Army has implemented procedures for selecting less vulnerable barricade sites and securing them more thoroughly, although it won’t reveal the exact nature of those procedures. Militiamen say they already know the new tactics and have ways around them—even when the Army throws up a temporary checkpoint with no notice—although they won’t discuss those either.

But the point, according to the militia leader, is not that their attacks on checkpoints are successful. Corruption among checkpoint GIs is so widespread that, he says, soldiers have no incentive to risk even firefights they’re likely to win. “They’re just useless and they know it. You stop one truck today and two more go through somewhere else tomorrow, what’s the point?”

‘SNOW’-CAPPED PEAKS

Terrorist Leader Speaks About Drug Finance Network

November 10, Friday Edition

By Margaret Anthony

Further reporting by Post Times staff

For the first time, a Posse leader has admitted, on the record, that his gang operates hand in glove with drug cartels — though he insisted we hide his name.

“It’s a carrot-and-stick business,” he says. “We’re the stick.”

The carrot is bribery, clearly having an effect across the West as drugs flow freely to Terror-Free Zone cities despite federal success reducing terrorist violence.

When a drug shipment reaches a checkpoint set up by the Army or local law enforcement, the driver will offer the soldiers there a bribe, usually about $450 a man. In most cases, according to the terrorist leader, the bribe is accepted and the shipment passes through.

“GIs know that if they don’t take the money we’re watching and we’ll start shooting. Then the stuff will go someplace else and some other road crew will take the money, so they figure why bother being honest,” says the Posse leader.

Retired Colonel Mark Harris, author of Dam it All: How Coastal Money Built the Whining West, lays the blame at the feet of local Western police. “When we sent the Army in there, none of our boys took bribes,” he says. “But they’ve spent years watching the local guys on the next roadblock take the money and wave the trucks through. There aren’t very many local cops doing this work anymore, but it’s too late. The culture has set in.”

The terrorist leader agrees.

Corruption is so widespread, he says, that GIs or local cops at checkpoints have no incentive to risk even firefights they’re likely to win. “You stop one truck today and two more go through somewhere else tomorrow, what’s the point?”

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