Had to cut this chapter in half,will conclude along with the last short chapter in the next part..

[.... This chapter focuses on an unusual tool occasionally used by government agencies to infiltrate drug operations as they seek evidence to bring about arrests and termination of the operation: contract undercover agents. Very few of them exist. They provide their own airplanes, they fund the undercover operations, they take enormous risks, and they are paid on the basis of missions accomplished.

They carry out undercover operations that require they act as drug traffickers so as to infiltrate the targeted drug operation. They rely upon the integrity and trustworthiness of the government agents who direct and authorize their undercover activities, most of the authorizations given verbally.

This chapter focuses on the bizarre and convoluted activities of Rodney Matthews, one of those contract pilots who infiltrated the inner workings of some of the top and most dangerous of all drug kingpins. He initially worked undercover for the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) and then for U.S. Customs Service in San Antonio, Texas, with occasional work for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

Matthews did not know about the problems within U.S. Customs that were identified in a 1992 House report which revealed massive integrity problems within that government agency, and which exist today. If he had known of the internal problems, he would have realized that reliance upon the verbal authority given by Customs agents had grave consequences. For any number of reasons, the government agents giving him authority to haul drugs as part of undercover operations could deny having given the authorization. In a case like this, a long prison term can follow, even life in prison.....]
full text
https://exploringrealhistory.blogspot.com/2019/04/part-8-drugging-americasabotaging.html