Mexico’s Gulf Cartel may have 40 bulletproof vests emblazoned with “FBI” and “DEA” to trick their drug-trafficking rivals, according to a new law enforcement advisory.
Baseball caps and T-shirts with the agencies’ names long have been a fad among everyday citizens, but ballistic armor raises the stakes and concerns, officials said.
Drug Enforcement Administration spokesman Mike Sanders said that during his nearly 20-year career, he’s only heard of a handful of times when criminals imitated agents, but never by wearing vests.
While impersonating U.S. law enforcement officers would seem unusual in Mexico, drug cartel operatives there long have disguised themselves as Mexican federal agents, police and soldiers to carry out attacks or kidnap rivals.
It’s 11:30pm. You and your wife are in bed, your infant daughter sleeps in the room next door. You are working class and cannot afford any better place to live than your non-descript home in a bad part of town. You hear shuffling outside, thinking you’re seeing shadows of men rushing past your property. You’ve followed the terrifying news stories of home invasion robberies, so you purchased a handgun and keep it locked up in the nightstand. You see another shadow, causing you to unlock the case and load the weapon. You wake your wife and tell her to grab your daughter and head to the basement. You get a robe on are about to investigate when the door bursts open. You’re disoriented by the shouting of black-clad masked men commanding you to get on the floor. Your wife and baby are screaming and the men with guns run toward them. The men’s body armor has big FBI or DEA letters on them.
Did you shoot anyone? Did they see your gun and shoot you? Do your wife and child get hit in any crossfire? Most of all, are those actually law enforcement officers with a mistaken address on a warrant, or Mexican cartel thugs who have the wrong address for a “hit”? These are things most of us can only imagine, but something real people like Cory Maye suffer every year.
