Suggested activities. aWrite down the answers, using the text:

a Write down the answers, using the text:

1 What was Operation Schoolboy?.......................................................

2 What conclusion had that Op-......................................................

eration made about Bangkok?.......................................................

3 Did the DEA agent agree with.......................................................

that conclusion?........................................................

4 What was the DEA agent's........................................................

opinion about the efficiency of.......................................................

DEA's Bangkok office?........................................................

5 From what places did the drug........................................................

money come to Bangkok?.......................................................

6 What drug was mostly traf-.......................................................

ficked there?.......................................................

7 Where was it stored?

b Say what the agent meant by the following words, to your mind:

1 Major American brokers are actually now residing in Bangkok.

2 The European connection is most interesting.

3 Might even warrant a trip there.

4 The current race between us and our cousins does not allow a lot of time.

5 There's a big picture here involving all the major banking havens.

6 There are many more answers than will ever be available here.

с Write down the questions for the following answers:

d Imagine you are the senior agent. Write a report on your investigation, using the text. You may start like this:

Say what you remember about the Operation Cashflow described in the previous two texts.

Skim and scan:

Read this text quickly and say what countries involved in drug trafficking it mentions.

Text3

As the Operation Cashflow studies continued, couriers hurried several times a day between DEA and CIA headquarters in Washington and Langley, Virginia. Reports reaching Washington from CIA and DEA agents in Latin America were startling.

A secret CIA cable from Bolivia told of a major trafficker in La Paz promising a representative of President Herman Siles-Zuazo to pay off 25 to 35 per cent of the country's $4.4 billion foreign debt in return for exclusive rights to the coca traffic. According to the CIA, the offer was refused.

Another secret cable, four pages in length, from the CIA's Bahamas station reported government corruption with astonishing precision, detailing not only the names of a half-dozen bribe-taking officials but the exact amount of the bribes ($50, 000 to over $100, 000) and specifically what favors they bought. At least one DEA official expressed shock, not so much at the revelations as at the thoroughness with which they were known. It was almost as if the CIA had been involved in some way.

The secret Bahamian cable recalled a similar, though far more extensive document, classified TOP SECRET, which had earlier detailed corruption among officials in the Cayman Islands. That bound report included not only evidence of extensive involvement of government officials with traffickers, but photographs of specific banks and individuals. Though a later CIA report went on to call the Cayman Islands «the supermarket of money-laundering centers», the effect of both reports on the American government had evidently been minimal for, as one agent pointed out, «They're still going strong». Despite a 1984 U.S.-British agreement promising American officials access to Cayman drug accounts, few investigators were claiming victory.