“You don’t see many drug traffickers retire,” gloated Bill Furay, head of the DEA’s office in Beaumont, Texas, following the arrest of a wealthy couple from a tiny neighborhood in Pearland. “Either they end up in prison, or they end up dead.”
Furay apparently never had time to give that lecture to his teenage daughter, Sarah — who was arrested earlier this month on drug-trafficking charges that could result in decades behind bars.
For many years, Furay has styled himself the implacable scourge of drug dealers, becoming a familiar presence at triumphant DEA press conferences announcing mass arrests and seizures of contraband and proceeds.
“Basically, we’re targeting criminal organizations, gangs, trying to hit them where they live and breathe,” Furay boasted following a large-scale bust following “Operation Blood Loss” in 2009. “Operation Agent Orange” in June 2010 propelled Furay into the spotlight yet again: A multi-jurisdictional narcotics task force staged a massive operation spanning several counties to arrest 60 people allegedly involved in a drug-trafficking ring tied to Mexico’s Sinaloa narcotics cartel. US Attorney Malcolm Bates described the narcotics operation as the “United Nations of drug trafficking.” Like most initiatives of its kind, Agent Orange began with information sweated out of low-level dealers seeking a “downward departure” in sentencing in exchange for leniency.
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