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- <text id=90TT1084>
- <title>
- Apr. 30, 1990: American Notes:Drugs
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1990
- Apr. 30, 1990 Vietnam 15 Years Later
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- NATION, Page 43
- American Notes
- DRUGS
- X Marks The Spot
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p> Three ways to track down illegal drug profits:
- </p>
- <p> 1. Arrange for the international exchange of information
- about the secret bank accounts of drug cartels.
- </p>
- <p> 2. Freeze the bank records and funds of suspected narcotics
- muckamucks.
- </p>
- <p> 3. Get a couple of shovels and dig.
- </p>
- <p> No. 1 is in the works. No. 2 was accomplished last week,
- when a U.S. court ordered 173 banks in 22 states and the
- District of Columbia to turn over the records of more than 750
- suspicious accounts. No. 3 is something the FBI ought to
- consider.
- </p>
- <p> No. 3, in fact, is driving the FBI crazy. Since early April,
- some lucky residents of the gritty Puerto Rican seaside village
- of Vega Baja have been zipping around with new cars and
- motorcycles, buying new houses and otherwise behaving like
- Donald Trump. Turns out that several villagers (no one will say
- who or how many) dug up at least one of about ten big plastic
- drums containing as much as $20 million that someone,
- presumably a drug dealer, had buried on a nearby farm. While
- townsfolk kept digging fresh holes all over the place, agents
- dashed about trying to reclaim the cash. Fat chance.
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
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