President’s War On Drugs : An Agent Who Stumbled Onto Millions Describes Perils of Job

While President Bush was delivering Orange County’s share of money confiscated by police, a narcotics agent who originally seized the drug bounty last year reflected Tuesday on illegal drugs, big money and the dangerous lives of investigators who wage the daily undercover war on narcotics.

“Until 3 years ago, or 4 years ago when Nancy Reagan got real strong on drugs,” no one seemed to care very much about the problem, said Frank Becker, a member of Orange County’s Regional Narcotics Suppression Program task force that seized $5.2 million in illicit funds in raids on Feb. 10 and 11, 1988.

“Now, everyone’s getting real serious about drugs . . . and now all of a sudden you’ve got some people behind you,” said Becker, who asked that his real name not be used because of the nature of his work.

Broke Open Closet

Under the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984, a portion of drug dealers’ assets seized by police is returned to law enforcement agencies to fight drug abuse. The money delivered by Bush on Tuesday was part of the cash that Becker and other task force officers confiscated along with 18 pounds of heroin in raids in South Gate and Riverside.

When Becker broke open a locked closet last February in an old, two-story Riverside house, he and the other officers were stunned to find more than $3 million in neatly stacked bills.

“We never expected to get the kinds of money we were getting,” said the police veteran, whose heart attack last year has at least temporarily halted his 23-year law enforcement career. “I personally had no idea we’d be coming across millions.”

Becker, who has been on medical leave since July, talked with a reporter Tuesday in a local coffee shop while both high-ranking police officials and some of his undercover colleagues greeted Bush at Rancho del Rio, a 213-acre estate off Ortega Highway that was seized in another drug raid in 1985.

“There are millions of dollars that are being confiscated,” Becker said. “If (the federal Drug Enforcement Administration) is correct, we’re getting 15% to 20% of the dope. If that’s true, we’re probably getting 15% to 20% of the money.

‘Think of’ Money Missed

“And if that’s the case, think of the money we are missing.

“I think if you took a survey in this . . . coffee shop, probably two or three out of every 10 in here would have done drugs, hard drugs, cocaine. . . . And if that’s the case, there’s a lot of ‘good, law-abiding citizens’ out there doing cocaine.”

Becker sees hope, however, in the 5-year-old federal law that turns over to law enforcement the assets seized from drug traffickers.

“We don’t have as many cops as there are crooks,” he said, “so this money coming back in to fight narcotics is great. It is building up the (police) budgets. . . .”

Undercover investigations take “an exorbitant amount of manpower,” Becker said. “We will get information that somebody is a dope dealer and we will just start following them and spend days and days and days following them. You’ve got 8 or 10 men, 8 or 10 cars, a helicopter, a pilot and an observer. Then you’ve got support people--just to watch a crook.

“And you may spend days on him and the biggest thing he’s done in the last week . . . is he’s gone to the mall and done some shopping. He didn’t do anything illegal.”

But just because money is available to finance undercover operations doesn’t mean that all is well. There is ever-present danger.

Dangerous Encounters

“You have no . . . idea what a dope dealer is going to do when you meet him, what you’re going to (face) when you’re exposed to him. You don’t know if he’s a user. And you don’t know to what extent he is a user. You don’t know if he’s on acid when you go to meet him.”

Becker likes to put it this way when talking with civilians: “I want you to tell me how much you would charge me to . . . put on a raid jacket that says POLICE and . . . put on a bulletproof vest that covers your abdomen area then . . . go up to that house there with maybe 5 or 6 of your friends.

“I want you to walk up and knock on the door and as loud as you can say it, I want you to yell out ‘Police! We have a warrant for your arrest; please come to the door. Let us in.’

“Then I want you to stand there for 30, 40, maybe 50 seconds, maybe even 2 minutes and while you’re standing there just twiddling your thumbs, I want you to knock on the door again and say the same thing again because he may not have heard you the first time. I want you to have one of your friends say it in Spanish so we’ll make sure that everybody in there knows who you are.

Most Will Have Guns

“Now, after 2 minutes are gone, I want you to stand back and kick that . . . door in and then . . . go in there knowing that most criminals will have a gun in their possession. . . . I want you to arrest every sob in there.

“What do you think you’d charge me to do that?

“They are asking policemen to do it for $4,000 or less a month,” Becker said. “There aren’t many people that you could even get to do it, much less do it for $4,000 a month.”

COUNTY TALLY

Statistics from the Regional Narcotics Suppression Program since its creation Dec. 15, 1986. The figures are cumulative:

Currency seized: $38,848,734.

Cocaine seized: 8,280 pounds.

Heroin seized: 24 pounds.

Marijuana seized: 2,200 pounds.

Arrests: 117.

Cases investigated: 101.

The task force includes 39 officers from 23 Orange County police agencies and five other agencies (FBI, DEA, Customs, IRS and state Bureau of Narcotics)