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One of the main problems with the war on drugs can be summed up by an old expression. Every man has his price. Money breeds corruption and the vast sums of capital resulting from the sale of illegal drugs create all kinds of temptation at every level. And while everyone is aware of the fact that there is tremendous corruption among Mexican law enforcement and the military, very rarely do you hear about a corrupt drug warrior this side of the Rio Grand. That's one of the reasons the case of Richard Cramer is so shocking.
Once a high-ranking U.S. anti-drug official, Cramer held top jobs in the war on Mexico's lethal drug cartels. He once led an office of two dozen agents in Arizona and was the attaché for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Guadalajara. All that experience made Cramer a gold mine for the drug lords he tipped off. According to federal investigators, Cramer was essentially a drug-war double agent who served as a powerful and secret ally of the cartels.
According to federal law enforcement officials, Cramer allegedly advised traffickers on law enforcement tactics and stole files to help them identify snitches. He charged $2,000 for a Drug Enforcement Administration document that was sent to a suspect in Miami by e-mail last August, authorities said. "Cramer was responsible for advising the drug traffickers how U.S. law enforcement works with warrants and record checks as well as how DEA conducts investigations to include 'flipping subjects,' " or recruiting informants, a criminal complaint says.
DEA agents arrested him at his Arizona home early this fall. A spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney in Miami said that she could not comment but said that cases that start with complaints usually go before grand juries. A decision on an indictment in Miami is expected soon, according to a federal official who requested anonymity because the investigation was ongoing. In a sinister case of former federal officials going into private consulting, the 26-year government veteran became a full-time advisor to traffickers after retiring from ICE in January 2007, according to the criminal complaint.
A trafficker "convinced Cramer to retire . . . and begin working directly for him in drug trafficking and money laundering," the complaint said. Cramer continued to sell secret documents that he obtained from active U.S. agents, an aspect of the case still under investigation, the official said. Shocked former colleagues described Cramer as a respected investigator who spoke Spanish and operated skillfully in the array of U.S. and Mexican agencies at the border when he ran the ICE office in Nogales, Arizona where he grew up.
"It came as a complete shock," Santa Cruz County Sheriff Tony Estrada said in a telephone interview. "I have been in law enforcement at the border 42 years and I have seen some strange things, but I have never ceased to be surprised. I think something went terribly wrong in Mexico.
"I'm curious to know what flipped him to the other side." Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites        
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