Irizarry recognizes that he is the most corrupt agent in the United States. Drug Enforcement Administration history, admitting he “become another man” while colluding with Colombian traffickers to construct a wealthy lifestyle with pricey sports cars, Tiffany jewels, and multiple lovers.
Irizarry used his final hours of freedom to tell The Associated Press that he will not go down for this alone, accusing long-trusted DEA colleagues of joining him in skimming millions of dollars from drug money laundering stings to fund a decade of luxury overseas travel, fine dining, top seats at sporting events, and frat house-style debauchery.
According to Irizarry, dozens of other federal agents, prosecutors, informants, and in some cases cartel smugglers themselves participated in the three-continent joyride known as “Team America,” which selected cities for money laundering pick-ups for party purposes or to coincide with Real Madrid soccer or Rafael Nadal tennis matches. This included stops along the route in VIP suites of Caribbean strip joints, Amsterdam’s red-light district, and a Colombian vessel that set sail with an abundance of alcohol and more than a dozen prostitutes.
This image provided by the Associated Press shows Jose Irizarry in Cartagena, Colombia in 2017. Irizarry admits he is the most corrupt agent in the United States. Admitting he conspired with Colombian traffickers to fund a lavish lifestyle, he made Drug Enforcement Administration history. However, he claims he will not accept the blame alone and accuses long-trusted DEA colleagues of aiding him in skimming millions from money laundering raids to fuel a decade of lavish living. /AP
Irizarry, 48, told the AP in a series of interviews prior to beginning a 12-year federal prison sentence, “We had unrestricted freedom to do anything we pleased.” Once we arrived, we engaged in drinking and pursuing women.
According to Irizarry, the source of all this merriment was the crushing awareness among DEA employees around the world that they are powerless to affect the drug battle. A historic influx of illegal cocaine and opioids entering the United States, which has resulted in more than 100,000 drug overdose deaths every year, was met with indifference when it came to constructing cases or halting the flow.
Irizarry stated, “An unwinnable battle cannot be won; both the DEA and its operatives are aware of this.” “There’s so much narcotics leaving Colombia, and there’s so much money, and we know we can’t make a difference.”
“The drug war is a game…. It was a very entertaining game that we played.”
Irizarry’s account, which some former colleagues have criticized as a fabricated attempt to minimize his sentence, was revealed in days of remorseful, furious, and often tearful interviews with the Associated Press in the historic district of his birthplace San Juan. It was essentially the same description he provided to the FBI in long debriefings and secret court documents obtained by the AP after he pleaded guilty in 2020 to 19 counts of corruption, including money laundering and bank fraud.
But after years of portraying Irizarry as a rogue agent who operated alone, U.S. In recent months, Justice Department investigators have begun to meticulously follow Irizarry’s confessional road map, interrogating as many as two dozen current and former DEA officers and prosecutors whom Irizarry accuses of turning a blind eye to his gross violations and occasionally participating in them.
The investigation has centered on a jet-setting former partner of Irizarry and numerous other trusted DEA colleagues assigned to international money laundering. And at least three current and former federal prosecutors have been questioned about Irizarry’s rowdy parties, including one still in a senior role in Miami, another who appeared on “The Bachelorette,” and a former Ohio prosecutor who was confirmed to serve as the U.S. attorney in Cleveland this year before resigning abruptly for unspecified family reasons.
The expanding investigation comes at a time when the nation’s premier narcotics law enforcement agency has been rocked by repeated misconduct scandals among its 4,600 agents, including one who allegedly accepted bribes from drug traffickers and another who is accused of leaking confidential information about law enforcement targets. Irizarry’s sweeping betrayal of the badge is at the center of an ongoing external examination of the DEA’s expansive international operations in 69 nations.
The once-distinguished agent has accused former colleagues in the DEA’s Miami-based Group 4 of lining their pockets and fabricating records to refill a slush fund used on foreign excursions over the course of a decade, until his resignation in 2018. He charged a U.S. Agent of Immigration and Customs Enforcement suspected of receiving a $20,000 bribe. And lately, the FBI, the Office of Inspector General, and a federal prosecutor examined Irizarry in prison about other government employees and claims he presented regarding misbehavior in marine interdictions.
Jose Irizarry, a former DEA agent condemned to more than 12 years in federal prison for conspiring to launder money with a Colombian cartel, speaks during an interview the night before entering a federal detention camp on Wednesday, January 5, 2022 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Irizarry asserts, “An unwinnable battle cannot be won, and both the DEA and its operatives are aware of this.” Carlos Giusti / Associated Press “There’s so much narcotics leaving Colombia, and there’s so much money. We know we’re powerless.”
Irizarry stated of the investigators, “It was far-fetched for them to believe that anything was occurring.” “The indictment presents an image of me as the crooked agent who orchestrated this entire scam, but it makes no mention of the rest of the DEA. I was not the mastermind.”
The Tampa federal judge who jailed Irizarry last year appeared to concur, stating that other agents corrupted by the “allure of easy money” must be probed. “This must end,” said Judge Charlene Honeywell to the prosecutors, adding that Irizarry was “the one who was captured, but it’s clear that there are others.”
Justice Department officials declined to comment. “José Irizarry is a criminal who violated his oath as a federal law enforcement officer and violated the trust of the American people,” said a DEA spokesperson. “Over the past 16 months, DEA has worked vigorously to further strengthen our discipline and hiring policies to ensure the integrity and efficacy of our essential work.”
The Associated Press was able to corroborate some, but not all, of Irizarry’s accusations using thousands of confidential law enforcement records and dozens of interviews with those familiar with his claims and the ongoing investigation, including several who spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to discuss them.
The investigation focuses in part on one of Irizarry’s former associates, George Zoumberos, who traveled frequently for money laundering investigations abroad. Irizarry told the Associated Press that Zoumberos had unrestricted access to so-called commission monies and used them improperly for personal expenditures and unjustified travels, using the names of nonexistent people to excuse the excesses in DEA reports.
Zoumberos remained a DEA agent despite being arrested and temporarily jailed in 2018 in Madrid on sexual assault claims. He resigned only after being stripped of his pistol, badge, and security clearance for using his Fifth Amendment rights to remain silent in late 2019, when the same prosecutor who prosecuted Irizarry asked him to testify before a Tampa federal grand jury.
Authorities are so intent on capturing Zoumberos that they summoned his brother, a Florida wedding photographer who traveled and partied with DEA agents, and even granted him immunity in exchange for his testimony. Michael Zoumberos, however, has also refused to testify and has been incarcerated outside Tampa since March for “civil contempt” – an extremely rare coercive tactic that demonstrates the investigation’s increasing intensity.
Michael Zoumberos told AP in a jailhouse interview, “I didn’t do anything illegal, but I won’t talk about my brother.” The FBI is holding me essentially as a political prisoner in an effort to force me to cooperate.
Some active and former DEA officers assert that Irizarry’s claims are exaggerated or outright false. The former ICE agent scoffed at Irizarry’s allegation that he had accepted a $20,000 payment, stating that he had raised red flags about Irizarry from the beginning. And the lawyer for the Zoumberos brothers claims prosecutors are on a “fishing expedition” to pursue new prosecutions because of the Irizarry case.
“Everyone they associate with José is irrelevant to his thefts,” stated lawyer Raymond Mansolillo. “They’re looking for a crime that fits this case as opposed to a crime that actually occurred, but regardless of what happens, they’ll charge somebody with something because they don’t want to come out of all of this five years later and have only charged José.”
The fact that Irizarry’s accusations followed a 2015 Inspector General’s report that criticized DEA employees for engaging in “sex parties” with prostitutes hired by Colombian gangs makes them even more offensive. Consequently, the DEA administrator at the time, Michele Leonhart, resigned and numerous agents were suspended.
Few Americans are aware of the existence of the DEA’s undercover narcotics money laundering operations, which are at the center of the Irizarry investigation. These interactions are strictly prohibited by federal regulations.
Every year, the DEA launders tens of millions of dollars on behalf of the world’s most violent drug cartels through shell corporations, a strategy lauded in long-running overseas investigations such as Operation White Wash, which resulted in more than 100 arrests and the seizure of more than $100 million and a ton of cocaine.
However, the DEA has also been criticized for allowing large sums of money to go unseized during operations, so allowing cartels to continue their business, and for failing to closely monitor and document sting operations, thereby making it difficult to evaluate their effectiveness.
Since at least 2006, the DEA has failed to make annual reports to Congress about these so-called Attorney General Exempted Operations, according to a report from the Inspector General of the Justice Department due in 2020. This reprimand, together with the embarrassment caused by Irizarry’s confession, prompted DEA Administrator Anne Milgram to seek an ongoing external assessment of the agency’s international operations.
“In the vast majority of these activities, no one is watching,” said Bonnie Klapper, a former New York federal prosecutor and prominent critic of DEA money laundering. In the Irizarry operation, nobody cared how much money was being laundered, nobody cared that they weren’t filing any cases, nobody was watching the house, and there were no controls.
Another former federal prosecutor, Rob Feitel, stated that the DEA’s inadequate control made it simple to redirect monies for a variety of unapproved activities. As long as money seizures continued to drive up crime statistics — a low bar given the ample supply — few questions were addressed.
“The other officers are not idiots; they understood there were no controls, and a number of them might have done what Irizarry did,” said Feitel, who represents a former DEA agent under investigation in the investigation. He didn’t simply test the waters; he took a full bath in them.
Prior to joining the DEA in 2009, Irizarry served as a federal air marshal and Border Patrol agent with a fluent flip between English and Spanish in his speech. According to him, he acquired the tactics of the game as a DEA rookie from senior police officers who rose to prominence in New York City during the 1990s, when cocaine flooded American streets.
Diego Marn, a veteran U.S. informant known as Colombia’s “Contraband King” for allegedly launder[ing] drug money through imported appliances and other commodities, also played a significant role in his schooling. Irizarry stated that Marn taught him the subtleties of the black market peso exchange utilized by international narcotraffickers better than any other agent ever could.
Prosecutors claim that Irizarry and his Colombian co-conspirators misappropriated $9 million from investigations into money laundering in order to fund his lavish lifestyle.
To promote the plan, Irizarry wrote fake reports and directed DEA personnel to send money earmarked for undercover operations to overseas accounts he and his cronies controlled. In what amounted to unlawful bribes, hardened informants who kept a substantial commission from every cash transfer authorized by the DEA financed a portion of the festivities.
This photo was supplied by the U.S. The Drug Enforcement Administration displays U.S. money seized in 2016 during “Operation White Wash.” Long-running overseas investigation led to more than 100 arrests and the seizure of more than $100 million and more than a ton of cocaine. AP
Irizarry’s spending habits gradually mirrored the extravagant preferences of the narcos he was tasked with pursuing, with goodies such as a $30,000 Tiffany diamond ring for his wife, expensive sports cars, and a $767,500 mansion in the Colombian tourist city of Cartagena. With Louis Vuitton baggage and a gold Hublot watch, he would travel first class to Europe.
“I was really excellent at what I did, but I became someone I wasn’t…. I changed into a different person,” Irizarry said. “I became caught up in the lifestyle, partying and associating with informants.”
Irizarry asserts that as much as ninety percent of his group’s work excursions were “fake,” with partying and sporting events dictating the itinerary rather than actual work. And he claims that the U.S. government money that helped pay for it was justified in reports as “case-related,” which is a pretty imprecise term.
For example, Operation White Wash was charged for a trip to Madrid in August 2014 for the Spanish Supercup soccer finals.
Irizarry, however, informed the investigators that there was little actual work to be done besides making courtesy calls to a few friendly Spanish law enforcement officers. According to him, agents spent their time dining at expensive restaurants — one of which racked up a bill of 1,000 euros — and enjoying field-side tickets at the Real Madrid vs. Atletico Madrid title match.
Michael J. Garofola, a former “Bachelorette” candidate and then-Miami federal prosecutor, shared a photo on Instagram of himself with Irizarry and another agent, all of whom were wearing white Real Madrid jerseys.
A few days later, he posted outside a pub that he was “soaking up the final bit of Spanish culture before leaving.”
Irizarry stated that Garofola joined agents, cartel informants, and others in Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic, in 2014 for a night at the Doll House strip club. In a memorandum to the court requesting a reduction in his sentence, Irizarry described being in the VIP area with another agent and Garofola, racking up a $2,300 tab that was paid for by Iguana, an aggressive representative of Marn with a correspondingly frightening moniker.
According to Garofola, the travels were official work, and he was informed that the entire expense was covered by DEA funding.
“There were aspects of those visits that prompted me to question why I was there,” Garofola told the AP. I was brand new and excited to work on money laundering cases when Irizarry utilized me to legitimize this behavior. He did so simply by my presence.
In 2015, when Irizarry was transferred to Cartagena, the party followed. U.S. agents and prosecutors were required to visit the agent’s rooftop pool, which boasted breathtaking ocean views.
Irizarry recalls seeing Marisa Darden, a prosecutor from Cleveland who, according to him, flew to Colombia in September 2017 and was present at a gathering where two DEA agents were ingesting ecstasy. Irizarry says he didn’t observe Darden doing narcotics.
In the summer, federal officials questioned Irizarry about this party. One or more DEA agents who were present have been placed on administrative leave.
Darden went on to become a partner at a prominent Cleveland legal firm and was nominated by President Joe Biden to become the first African-American female U.S. attorney in northern Ohio last year. Darden abruptly withdrew from the race in May, citing “the imperative of putting family first” as her reason.
Darden refused to answer questions from the Associated Press, but her attorney stated that she “cooperated fully” with the federal investigation into “alleged illegal activity by federal agents,” a separate investigation from the FBI background check she was subjected to during the confirmation process.
Darden’s attorney, James Wooley, responded in an email to AP, “There is no indication that she participated in any criminal behavior.”
A White House official stated that the claims were not discovered during the screening procedure. And U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat from Ohio who nominated Darden for the position, was uninformed of the claims throughout the nomination process, according to his office; had he known, he “would have withdrawn his support.”
Monique Botero, who was recently promoted to oversee the narcotics section at the U.S. attorney’s office in Miami, was also questioned by federal investigators after being named by Irizarry. Irizarry told investigators and the Associated Press that Botero joined agents, informants, Colombian police, and prostitutes on a luxurious yacht for a party.
Botero’s attorneys acknowledge she was on the yacht in September 2015 for what she believed to be a trip organized by local police, but they insist “Monique never witnessed or participated in anything unlawful or unethical.”
“Irizarry has admitted that he lied to everyone around him for various nefarious purposes, and his lies about Monique are part of a similar pattern,” said Benjamin Greenberg, Monique’s attorney. “It is shocking that Monique is being slandered and defamed by a disgraced individual like Irizarry.”
Irizarry’s demise was both swift and predictable, the result of a luxury lifestyle that raised too many questions, even among colleagues eager to break the rules themselves. Eventually, he was betrayed by one of his closest confidants, a Venezuelan-American spy who admitted to stealing money from the covert operations.
“José’s problem is that he took things to the point of idiocy and ruined the party for everyone else,” a defense attorney who traveled with Irizarry and other agents explained. There is no doubt that he was not acting alone.
Since his incarceration, Irizarry has self-published a book titled “Getting Back on Track” as part of his effort to accept responsibility for his errors and pursue a simpler route after bringing so much humiliation upon himself and his family.
His Colombian-born wife, who was spared jail time on a money laundering conviction in return for Irizarry’s confession, recently informed him that she wished to divorce him.
Adding to Irizarry’s despondency is the fact that he is still the only one to pay such a hefty price for a pattern of misbehavior that the DEA, according to him, let to persist. To date, authorities have not charged any other agents, and a number of former coworkers have retired quietly rather than risk being terminated.
Irizarry stated, “I’ve divulged everything of my knowledge.” They are only need to dig.