The Big White Lie: The Deep Cover Operation That Exposed the CIA Sabotage of the Drug War - Softcover

Levine, Michael; Kavanau-Levine, Laura

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0985238623 ISBN 13: 9780985238629

Publisher: Laura Kavanau-Levine, 2012

Synopsis

In The Big White Lie, Michael Levine, former DEA agent and bestselling author of Deep Cover, leads the reader through a decade of undercover work. Levine’s prose is fast-moving, highly readable, and hard-hitting. He tells how the beautiful South American "Queen of Cocaine" seduced the CIA into protecting her from prosecution as she sold drugs to Americans; how CIA-sponsored paramilitary ousted, tortured, and killed members of a pro-DEA Bolivian ruling party; and how the CIA created La Corporacion, the "General Motors of cocaine," which led directly to the current cocaine/crack epidemic. As a 25-year veteran agent for the DEA, Michael Levine worked deep-cover cases from Bangkok to Buenos Aires, and witnessed firsthand scandalous violations of drug laws by U.S. officials.

About this title

About the Author

Michael Levine, called "America’s top undercover agent for 25 years," by 60 Minutes, is the New York Times bestselling author of Deep Cover, The Big White Lie and Triangle of Death, and one of the most decorated undercover agents in the history of the Drug Enforcement Administration. He is active as a court qualified expert and trial consultant in Covert Operations, International Narcotics Trafficking, Informant Handling and Police Use-of-Force. He is currently lecturing on Undercover Survival Tactics and Informant Handling for the U.S. State Department in Brazil. His New York City radio program, The Expert Witness Show, can be heard on WBAI 99.5 FM as well as Stitcher.com and iTunes. Laura Kavanau-Levine is the coauthor of The Big White Lie and Triangle of Death as well as the screenplays for HBO Pictures and Deutsche Colombia Pictures. She holds an MFA from New York University and a MSW from Fordham University.

From Kirkus Reviews

Former DEA agent Levine's account of his South American sting operation to capture major cocaine traffickers--a sting, he claims, that was sabotaged by the CIA. And not only was it sabotaged, but Levine's operation allegedly precipitated the Company into supporting a revolution in Bolivia during which major dealers became high government officials. The reason for the alleged CIA betrayal? According to Levine (author of a previous expos‚, Deep Cover, 1990--not reviewed, and subject of Donald Goddard's Undercover, 1988), the agency wanted to keep Bolivia under its thumb: The poorest country in South America was the most vulnerable to Communist takeover. In the early 80's, Levine, based in Tucson, was given a new identity, a luxury house, and a ``partner,'' Sonia Attala, a past darling of the Medell¡n cartel who'd made millions arranging transactions but who fled stateside when a $1.5 million deal went sour and the cartel put a bounty on her head. Levine and Attala's mission was the arrest of Bolivian Minister of the Interior Luis Arce-Gomez- -a.k.a. the ``Minister of Cocaine.'' With Levine posing as Attala's new business partner, Attala began calling her old contacts to buy DEA-seized cocaine, at which point Levine was supposed to bust the buyers. Levine's description of this undercover work is gripping as he details the tension of big bucks and kilos on the table and of cocaine cowboys--suave yet savage--making deals while drunk and cranked up, playing with their knives and guns. Moreover, the author's suspicions of the CIA's invisible hand appears confirmed by, among other suspicious disasters, having the sound wiped off of all of his incriminating videotapes of drug deals. Flawed by Levine's endless snarling and a sometime sluggish style--but undeniably the real nitty-gritty at its core. (Eight- page b&w photo insert--not seen) -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: Laura Kavanau-Levine
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0985238623
• ISBN 13: 9780985238629
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 472