PURCHASE OF EVIDENCE AND PAYMENTS TO INFORMANTS

Mr. ROONEY. This request is for purchase of evidence and greater payments to informants?

Mr. INGERSOLL. Yes, sir.

Mr. ROONEY. The entire amount?

Mr. INGERSOLL. Yes, sir.

Mr. ROONEY. How much do you have for that purpose right now? Mr. INGERSOLL. In the 1970 budget we have $1,151,000. That is in the pending budget.

Mr. ROONEY. That is the amount that was agreed upon by both the House and the Senate committees, is that right?

Mr. INGERSOLL. That was the amount agreed upon; yes, sir.

Mr. ROONEY. Repeat the amount.

Mr. INGERSOLL. $1,151,000.

Mr. ROONEY. How much was provided for that purpose prior to the time this new agency was formed and transferred to the Department of Justice?

Mr. ALBRIGHT. Approximately $800,000.

Mr. ROONEY. Would you say the drug problem is greater now than it was before this present agency was formed?

Mr. INGERSOLL. Yes, sir.

Mr. ROONEY. You say at the end of the third paragraph on page 3 of the justifications, "It is estimated that in fiscal year 1969, at least 60 cases, which were leading to major organizations engaged in drug trafficking, had to be prematurely aborted.”

What do you mean by that?

Mr. INGERSOLL. That is, we had to conclude the case before we had fully exploited the potential of the case. We had to be satisfied with the arrest of people at lower levels of the traffic rather than those who are really controlling the traffic on a large scale.

Mr. ROONEY. Whose fault was that? Bad judgment on your part, or what?

Mr. INGERSOLL. No, sir. I think we did not have enough money in our overall budget to permit us to go into the higher levels of the organizational structure because it required more money than we could spend on a single case.

Mr. ROONEY. Whose fault was that?

Mr. INGERSOLL. I think it was a judgment that we had to make on the basis of the total amount of money we had available to us for the year. If we had spent too much on one case, then that would have had an adverse effect on another case.

Mr. ROONEY. So, this was your judgment, and it had nothing to do with this committee or the lack of furnishing of funds by this committee, did it?

Mr. INGERSOLL. No. That is correct, sir. I think it was a case of not requesting enough at the outset.

Mr. ROONEY. Upon a hasty reading of these justifications, one might get the idea that the Congress had something to do with your mistakes. and errors of judgment. Would that be a fair statement?

Mr. INGERSOLL. That was not the intention.

Mr. ROONEY. I am not asking what the intention was. I am asking you, as you read this, one would fairly get that impression, would he not?

Mr. INGERSOLL. I do not think so, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. ROONEY. Let me sum it up this way: Is there anything contained in these pages of justifications which is at all critical of the action of this subcommittee, the House Committee on Appropriations, or the Congress?

Mr. INGERSOLL. No, sir.

Mr. ROONEY. I believe we already have in the record that this committee of the Congress has never decreased the requested appropriation for either the purchase of evidence or the payments to informants, is that right?

Mr. INGERSOLL. Not since I have been director, sir.

Mr. ROONEY. What do you mean by the statement in the next to the last paragraph of page 4?

Mr. INGERSOLL. Are you referring to the statement that says, "There have never been the funds available . . ."?

Mr. ROONEY. Exactly.

Mr. INGERSOLL. Again, sir, I think this is a matter of management. Management had never requested the funds in these amounts before. I do not know why in the past that was true.

I should point out that we are trying to go into a new operational concept, and we are now coming to you with the proposition that we think we can penetrate the very top level of the narcotics and drug trafficking activities in this country with adequate funds.

Mr. ROONEY. Do you mean by payment to a man, who might be a stool pigeon or informant, of as much as $100,000?

Mr. INGERSOLL. No. I think the $100,000 refers to the purchase of evidence, which is a necessary prerequisite in many of these cases to initiate a prosecution.

Mr. ROONEY. What is wrong with the question I asked? Please read my question.

(Question read.)

Mr. ROONEY. What is your answer to that?

Mr. INGERSOLL. The answer, sir, is that as much as $100,000 would be paid for the purchase of evidence, perhaps several purchases. We do not anticipate we would pay an informant that much.

Mr. ROONEY. To whom would you pay $100,000? You mentioned the figure $100,000. To whom?

Mr. INGERSOLL. It might cost as much as $100,000, in combination, for the purchase of evidence, for payments for information, and so on, in order to convict a top leader in a drug trafficking organization. It might be a combination of all three.

Mr. ROONEY. Did you ever hear of anything like this being done before?

Mr. INGERSOLL. I think efforts have been made to do it on a smaller scale.

Mr. ROONEY. What sort of scale?

Mr. INGERSOLL. May I give you a couple of examples.

We have an investigation, for example, now of a major heroin importing and distributing organization. We have penetrated this or

ganization at a low echelon. But in order to develop it to its fullest, we will have to buy evidence, because they have a minimum amount that they will sell which will cost at least $75,000 for the purchase. With one purchase at this level we can probably disrupt the entire operation of this organization.

In another case we have the opportunity to purchase heroin, also from a well-known interstate trafficker, but the minimum price for each purchase that he will handle is in the neighborhood of $10,000. It would take two or three purchases of evidence, plus the payment of the informant that is involved in this case, before we could culminate the investigation.

We have another trafficking organization that has recently offered to sell cocaine to an informant of ours at a minimum amount of $10,000. We would have to buy that amount, which would be about half of a kilo.

Mr. ROONEY. That sort of thing has been going on for years, has it not?

Mr. INGERSOLL. Yes.

Mr. ROONEY. $10,000 purchases of drugs?

Mr. INGERSOLL. No. That is a relatively large purchase at this time. Mr. ROONEY. I am not asking whether it is common. I am asking whether or not there is anything new about it.

Mr. INGERSOLL. No. It has been done before.

Mr. ROONEY. Of course it has.

This business of talking of $100,000 is something new, though, is it not?

Mr. INGERSOLL. Yes, but we are talking about the disruption of an entire organization, Mr. Chairman, not a single purchase from an individual.

OPERATION INTERCEPT

Mr. ROONEY. Whose idea was that Operation Intercept that we were speaking of a while ago with the Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization? Whose idea was that?

Mr. INGERSOLL. This was an operation that was devised by a task force that was appointed or authorized by the President to develop ways and means of curbing the importation of marihuana and other drugs into the country across the Mexican border.

Mr. ROONEY. Did the State Department have anything to do with that?

Mr. INGERSOLL. I do not think they sat as a member of the task force, no, sir.

Mr. ROONEY. What was the total cost of that?

Mr. INGERSOLL. I couldn't tell you, sir.

Mr. ROONEY. Were you not the No. 1 agency involved?

Mr. INGERSOLL. No, sir.

Mr. ROONEY. This was a narcotics matter.

Mr. INGERSOLL. Yes, sir, but we did not provide manpower in the quantities that the other organizations did along the border.

Mr. ROONEY. Who kept the books?