SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — José Irizarry accepts that he’s known as the most corrupt agent in U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration history, admitting he "became another man" in conspiring with Colombian cartels to build a lavish lifestyle of expensive sportscars, Tiffany jewels and paramours around the world.
But as he used his final hours of freedom to tell his story to The Associated Press, Irizarry says he won’t go down for this alone, accusing some long-trusted DEA colleagues of joining him in skimming millions of dollars from drug money laundering stings to fund a decade’s worth of luxury overseas travel, fine dining, top seats at sporting events and frat house-style debauchery. Please ensure your affairs are in order José.
The way Irizarry tells it, dozens of other federal agents, prosecutors, informants and in some cases cartel smugglers themselves were all in on the three-continent joyride known as "Team America" that chose cities for money laundering pick-ups mostly for party purposes or to coincide with Real Madrid soccer or Rafael Nadal tennis matches. That included stops along the way in VIP rooms of Caribbean strip joints, Amsterdam’s red-light district and aboard a Colombian yacht that launched with plenty of booze and more than a dozen prostitutes.
“We had free access to do whatever we wanted,” the 48-year-old Irizarry told the AP in a series of interviews before beginning a 12-year federal prison sentence. “We would generate money pick-ups in places we wanted to go. And once we got there it was about drinking and girls.”
All this revelry was rooted, Irizarry said, in a crushing realization among DEA agents around the world that there’s nothing they can do to make a dent in the drug war anyway. Only nominal concern was given to actually building cases or stemming a record flow of illegal cocaine and opioids into the United States that has driven more than 100,000 drug overdose deaths a year.
“You can’t win an unwinnable war. DEA knows this and the agents know this,” Irizarry said. “There’s so much dope leaving Colombia. And there’s so much money. We know we’re not making a difference.”
“The drug war is a game. ... It was a very fun game that we were playing.”
Irizarry’s story, which some former colleagues have attacked as a fictionalized attempt to reduce his sentence, came in days of contrite, bitter, sometimes tearful interviews with the AP in the historic quarter of his native San Juan. It was much the same account he gave the FBI in lengthy debriefings and sealed court papers obtained by the AP after he pleaded guilty in 2020 to 19 corruption counts, including money laundering and bank fraud.
#1
Irizarry was also ordered to pay $11,233 in restitution and forfeit his interests in a diamond ring and a luxury sports car.
With the holidays rapidly approaching, perhaps we should take up a collection. Evidently, none of the other money he absconded with is of interest to the government.
#5
Sep 15, 2020 · Jose Ismael Irizarry, 46, and his wife, Nathalia Gomez-Irizarry, 36, admitted to participating in a seven-year scheme to divert over $9 million in drug proceeds from undercover money laundering investigations into bank accounts that they and co-conspirators controlled.
[ET] In what she has called a David versus Goliath battle, New York real estate lawyer Bobbie Anne Cox sued Governor Kathleen Hochul for issuing directives mandating quarantine for people exposed to or infected with highly contagious diseases such as COVID-19. The directives, dubbed "quarantine camp regulations," have been compared to laws that relocated Japanese during World War II without due process. Cox won the lawsuit on the grounds that Hochul’s regulation was unconstitutional.
In a recent interview, Cox told host Jan Jekielek that it’s crucial Americans learn about the U.S. Constitution so that they can prevent similar acts by state and federal governments.
"The constitution is not perfect, but it’s brilliant," Cox said. Schools should require learning about the U.S. Constitution, "from the little kids all the way up through high school, into college. The constitution was written to keep the government in check. The constitution wasn’t written to keep the people in check."
Our founding fathers came to this continent fleeing tyranny, Cox said. "They wrote the constitution in such a manner that if it’s followed, there wouldn’t be tyranny on these shores, ever. Yet, here we are, 250 years later, and we’re fighting tyranny."
It is tyrannical for a government to take power to which it is not entitled, Cox explained. During the pandemic, state and federal governments gave themselves powers the constitution did not give them.
When a governor such as Hochul takes on powers that properly belong to the legislature, "that’s tyranny," Cox reiterated.
"The attitude is kind of like, ’Well, we know we can’t do this, but we’re going to do it anyway.’ And then the theory is, ’Catch me if you can.’" Seems like that has been happening on the Federal level, too.
She immediately started speaking out about the illegitimacy of the lockdowns. She was bombarded by business owners and landlords asking her if the forced closures and rent moratorium were legal, and what they could do to fight back.
"We were seeing small businesses, landlords, people who were just getting decimated by the government."
Cox started a YouTube channel explaining the rights that the Constitution ensures, but the platform removed her videos. Unexpectedly.
She then moved the channel to Rumble. Cox considers herself a Democrat but worked with Republican lawmakers because she believes government overreach is not a partisan issue.
"I’m actually a Democrat ... In my mind, this is not a political thing. This is a human rights issue. This is a constitutional issue ... This is about being an American, and something people have really forgotten. It’s not people’s fault. I think it’s because we just really don’t teach this in school anymore." Unexpectedly.
Posted by: Bobby ||
11/14/2022 11:30 ||
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Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
/\ Not sure how you can make that leap Merc. 
In a recent interview, Cox told host Jan Jekielek that it’s crucial Americans learn about the U.S. Constitution so that they can prevent similar acts by state and federal governments.
