Michael Levine (DEA)
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Michael Levine (born December 20, 1939) is a former senior United States law enforcement agent, who was called "America's top undercover cop for 25 years" by the television show ''
60 Minutes ''60 Minutes'' is an American television news magazine broadcast on the CBS television network. Debuting in 1968, the program was created by Don Hewitt and Bill Leonard, who distinguished it from other news programs by using a unique style o ...
''. A 25-year veteran of the U.S.
Drug Enforcement Administration The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) is a Federal law enforcement in the United States, United States federal law enforcement agency under the U.S. Department of Justice tasked with combating illicit Illegal drug trade, drug trafficking a ...
(DEA), he is best known for his criticism of the U.S.
Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...
(CIA) and the influence it has played on DEA operations. Levine has claimed the CIA was instrumental in the creation of the Bolivian
drug cartel A drug cartel is a criminal organization composed of independent drug lords who collude with each other in order to improve their profits and dominate the illegal drug trade. Drug cartels form with the purpose of controlling the supply of the i ...
La Corporación, which he called the "
General Motors General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. The company is most known for owning and manufacturing f ...
of
cocaine Cocaine is a tropane alkaloid and central nervous system stimulant, derived primarily from the leaves of two South American coca plants, ''Erythroxylum coca'' and ''Erythroxylum novogranatense, E. novogranatense'', which are cultivated a ...
".


Career

Levine has testified as an
expert witness An expert witness, particularly in common law countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, and the United States, is a person whose opinion by virtue of education, training, certification, skills or experience, is accepted by the judge as ...
in 500 civil and criminal trials in the US and abroad, and has lectured on Undercover Operations and Human Intelligence for the U.S.
Defense Intelligence Agency The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) is an intelligence agency and combat support agency of the United States Department of Defense (DoD) specializing in military intelligence. A component of the Department of Defense and the United States In ...
, the U.S.
Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and Federal law enforcement in the United States, its principal federal law enforcement ag ...
's advanced undercover seminar, the
New York State New York, also called New York State, is a state in the northeastern United States. Bordered by New England to the east, Canada to the north, and Pennsylvania and New Jersey to the south, its territory extends into both the Atlantic Ocean and ...
Division of Criminal Justice Services and the
Royal Canadian Mounted Police The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP; , GRC) is the Law enforcement in Canada, national police service of Canada. The RCMP is an agency of the Government of Canada; it also provides police services under contract to 11 Provinces and terri ...
. Levine's career as an
undercover agent A covert operation or undercover operation is a military or police operation involving a covert agent or troops acting under an assumed cover to conceal the identity of the party responsible. US law Under US law, the Central Intelligence Ag ...
first became public with the publication of his DEA-authorized biography in March 1988, ''Undercover''. In March 1988, Levine wrote a letter to the ''
New York Daily News The ''Daily News'' is an American newspaper based in Jersey City, New Jersey. It was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson in New York City as the ''Illustrated Daily News''. It was the first U.S. daily printed in Tabloid (newspaper format ...
'' about how he wanted to arrest
Howard Stern Howard Allan Stern (born January 12, 1954) is an American broadcaster and media personality. He is best known for his radio show, ''The Howard Stern Show'', which gained popularity when it was nationally syndicated on terrestrial radio from 1 ...
after Stern had been joking on the radio about drugs being used backstage before his
pay-per-view Pay-per-view (PPV) is a type of pay television or webcast service that enables a viewer to pay to watch individual events via private telecast. Events can be purchased through a multichannel television platform using their electronic program ...
show '' Howard Stern's Negligeé and Underpants Party''. Special Agent in Charge for the New York City office of the DEA Robert Stutman denied any investigation into Stern and said "Levine's letter was written without the agency's knowledge." However, in Levine's follow-up book ''Deep Cover'', Levine claimed that the letter to ''Daily News'' as well as the Stern investigation had not only been authorized by DEA and the Department of Justice, but that Stern's media clout had caused the DEA to back down from the investigation. Also in ''Deep Cover'', Levine claimed that
Edwin Meese Edwin Meese III (born December 2, 1931) is an American attorney, law professor, author and member of the Republican Party who served in Ronald Reagan's gubernatorial administration (1967–1974), the Reagan presidential transition team (1980â ...
, the then
United States Attorney General The United States attorney general is the head of the United States Department of Justice and serves as the chief law enforcement officer of the Federal government of the United States, federal government. The attorney general acts as the princi ...
, had unmasked a DEA undercover team, posing as a
Mafia "Mafia", as an informal or general term, is often used to describe criminal organizations that bear a strong similarity to the Sicilian Mafia, original Mafia in Sicily, to the Italian-American Mafia, or to other Organized crime in Italy, organiz ...
family, that had penetrated the office of the
President of Mexico The president of Mexico (), officially the president of the United Mexican States (), is the head of state and head of government of Mexico. Under the Constitution of Mexico, the president heads the executive branch of the federal government and ...
and was "buying" Mexican military protection for the transportation of 15 tons of cocaine through Mexico into the United States. In May 2011,
Evo Morales Juan Evo Morales Ayma (; born 26 October 1959) is a Bolivian politician, trade union organizer, and former cocalero activist who served as the 65th president of Bolivia from 2006 to 2019. Widely regarded as the country's first president to come ...
, the
President of Bolivia The president of Bolivia (), officially known as the president of the Plurinational State of Bolivia (), is head of state and head of government of Bolivia and the captain general of the Armed Forces of Bolivia. According to the Bolivian C ...
, held up Levine's book ''La Guerra Falsa'' for the press to photograph, citing it as justification for his expelling the DEA from Bolivia on what he said was the basis of DEA using the war on drugs to manipulate the Bolivian government. ''La Guerra Falsa'', was the Spanish translation of Levine's ''The Big White Lie''. Levine replied in several articles that, "if President Morales had read the book he would have welcomed DEA as heroes and booted CIA from his country for betraying both the Bolivian and American people". Since 1995 he has co-hosted ''The Expert Witness Radio Show'' with musician Mark Marshall on the Pacifica Radio Network station WBAI-FM in New York. On August 11 2008, Levine was featured on ''
The Colbert Report ''The Colbert Report'' ( ) is an American late night television, late-night Late-night talk show, talk and news satire television program hosted by Stephen Colbert that aired four days a week on Comedy Central from October 17, 2005, to December ...
'' in a segment entitled "Nailed 'Em," which pokes fun at the American justice system for law enforcement activity that some would consider trivial or frivolous. The episode focused on a
medical marijuana Medical cannabis, medicinal cannabis or medical marijuana (MMJ) refers to Cannabis (drug), cannabis products and cannabinoid, cannabinoid molecules that are prescription drug, prescribed by physicians for their patients. The use of cannabi ...
patient who was denied a job for failing a
drug test A drug test (also often toxicology screen or tox screen) is a technical analysis of a biological specimen, for example urine, hair, blood, breath, sweat, or saliva, oral fluid/saliva—to determine the presence or absence of specified parent ...
. Levine has also been featured as an expert commentator on ''
Dateline NBC ''Dateline NBC'' (also known simply as ''Dateline'') is a weekly American television news magazine reality legal show that is broadcast on NBC. It was previously the network's flagship general interest news magazine, but now focuses mainly on ...
'', '' The MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour'', ''
Inside Edition ''Inside Edition'' is an American tabloid television program that is distributed in Broadcast syndication, first-run syndication by CBS Media Ventures. Having premiered on January 9, 1989, it is the longest-running syndicated-newsmagazine progr ...
'', ''60 Minutes'', ''Crier Report'', ''
The Geraldo Rivera Show ''Geraldo'' is an American first-run syndicated talk show that was hosted by Geraldo Rivera. The show ran for eleven seasons from September 7, 1987, to May 8, 1998, in which it broadcast 2,163 episodes. The show premiered as a tabloid talk sh ...
'', ''
Crossfire A crossfire (also known as interlocking fire) is a military term for the siting of weapons (often automatic weapons such as assault rifles or sub-machine guns) so that their arcs of fire overlap. This tactic came to prominence in World War I. ...
'', ''
Good Morning America ''Good Morning America'', often abbreviated as ''GMA'', is an American breakfast television, morning television program that is broadcast on American Broadcasting Company, ABC. It debuted on November 3, 1975, and first expanded to weekends wit ...
'', NBC and CBS morning shows, '' Cold Blood'', '' The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch'', ''
Charlie Rose Charles Peete Rose Jr. (born January 5, 1942) is an American journalist and talk show host. From 1991 to 2017, he was the host and executive producer of the talk show ''Charlie Rose (talk show), Charlie Rose'' on PBS and Bloomberg L.P., Bloombe ...
'',
Bill Moyers Bill Moyers (born Billy Don Moyers; June 5, 1934) is an American journalist and political commentator. Under the Johnson administration he served from 1965 to 1967 as the eleventh White House Press Secretary. He was a director of the Council ...
' ''Project Censored'', and ''Contrapunto'' (''Crossfire''s Spanish language version).


Bibliography

*''The Big White Lie: The Deep Cover Operation That Exposed the CIA Sabotage of the Drug War''. ; *''Deep Cover: The Inside Story of How DEA Infighting, Incompetence and Subterfuge Lost Us the Biggest Battle of the Drug War''. ; *''Fight Back; How to Take Back Your Neighborhood, Schools And Families From the Drug Dealer''. ;


Fiction-based works

* ''Triangle of Death''. * Technical consultant to the
NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...
miniseries In the United States, a miniseries or mini-series is a television show or series that tells a story in a predetermined, limited number of episodes. Many miniseries can also be referred to, and shown, as a television film. " Limited series" is ...
''Kingpin'' * Actor and technical consultant to the Showtime
series Series may refer to: People with the name * Caroline Series (born 1951), English mathematician, daughter of George Series * George Series (1920–1995), English physicist Arts, entertainment, and media Music * Series, the ordered sets used i ...
(cable TV series) '' Street Time''


References


External links


Michael Levine's professional site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Levine, Michael Drug Enforcement Administration agents American political writers American male non-fiction writers Living people 1939 births Place of birth missing (living people)