Deep Cover: The Inside Story of how DEA Infighting, Incompetence, and Subterfuge Lost Us the Biggest Battle of the Drug War

Michael Levine

Dell, 1991 - Biography & Autobiography - 304 pages

If there were a textbook on undercover work, Michael Levine would have to have written it. For twenty five years he was an insider in the DEA--their top undercover cop. A man with a proven record of arrests--personally accounting for more than 3,000 criminals serving 15,000 years in jail. A man who now calls America's war on drugs "the biggest, costliest, most dangerous failure of American policy since Vietnam."

He takes us with him on one of the most dramatic, ambitious cases ever mounted--an operation in which the drug kingpins of three countires were caught red-handed...and tells us why they were never brought to justice. The result is the explosive expose' of why we're losing the war on drugs--told in the words of an American who has devoted his life to winning it.

Contents

• Section 1: 1
• Section 2: 9
• Section 3: 17

About the author

Michael Levine spent a total of 25 years working undercover for four federal agencies. As an agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration for 23 years, Levine would ultimately bring about the arrests of approximately 3,000 criminals, by posing as priests, Colombian and Puerto Rican drug merchants, and a mob leader. In this manner, he was able to corral millions of drug money dollars. As a Jew growing up in a Hispanic neighborhood in South Bronx, New York City, Levine grew up pretending to be Puerto Rican and speaking fluent Spanish. Despite a couple of pre-adulthood arrests, he joined the U.S. Air Force. Later came marriage and the earning of an accounting degree at Hofstra University, an education financed through tending bar and playing saxophone. After graduation, he moved to the U.S. Treasury Department; this was followed by a stint in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. Michael Levine survived impersonating drug dealers but he also faced the drug wars at home. He tried to get his brother David to kick the heroin habit by having him move into his home with Levine, his wife, and his family, but David would later commit suicide. Levine's daughter faced drug trouble as well. She was removed from the family through a court petition, but she later rejoined them. Michael Levine has chronicled life as a federal agent in such books as Deep Cover. He enjoys walks with his wife Laura Kavanu and dog in Ulster County, N.Y.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Deep Cover: The Inside Story of how DEA Infighting, Incompetence, and Subterfuge Lost Us the Biggest Battle of the Drug War
• Author: Michael Levine
• Edition: reprint
• Publisher: Dell, 1991
• ISBN: 0440208017, 9780440208013
• Length: 304 pages
• Subjects: Biography & Autobiography / General; Fiction / General; True Crime / General