For future reference, one kilo of cocaine goes for $8000 in Juarez. In El Paso, on the American side of the border, it's worth $15,000, and if you can smuggle it all the way to Chicago, you might get as much as $25,000.
This according to Eric Gonzalez, special agent for the FBI and chief Division Counsel for the Alaska office of the FBI, who spoke to the April meeting of Alaska Sisters in Crime.
Gonzalez was stationed in El Paso doing drug interdictions for four years. He does not look back on the experience with any discernable nostalgia.
"El Paso is the black hole for FBI duty stations," Gonzalez says. "We had bars on our windows, bars between the living room and the bedroom of our house. One time a carjacker stole a car from an agent and dopers killed him because they thought he was one of us. We apprehended a bank robber who lived two blocks from the FBI." There was even a gunfight at an El Paso McDonald's over stolen dope.
Drug intercepts and confiscations are what drive the FBI office in El Paso, but the agents are discriminating in the cases they will pursue. "A guy calls me, says he knows about five hundred pounds of marijuana, I tell him, man, that's just personal use. I don't have time for that."
Gonzalez then passes around what he calls "trophy shots," pictures of agents lined up in front of truckloads full of intercepted drug shipments. There are several of him in front of a Ryder truck full of five thousand pounds of marijuana, the conclusion of a successful drug bust. He's a little irritable that the dopers didn't bother to box it up, as the task then falls to the agents, which explains why in the pictures everyone looks sweaty and exhausted. There was another trophy shot of two thousand pounds of cocaine, "worth $32 million on the street after cutting," Gonzalez says. He touches briefly on heroin, in the form of black tar -- "Smells like vinegar," he says -- which sells for four thousand an ounce.

One possible route for drugs coming to Alaska might be Juarez, El Paso, Dallas, Phoenix, Las Vegas, Yakima and Seattle. "Basically, any community with a large, Spanish-speaking population," Gonzalez says. He talks of the three old ladies who had been paid $5000 a pop for carrying two suitcases full of dope to Chicago. "Pathetic," says Gonzalez, "but traffickers don't care."
The FBI is alerted to many shipments by informants. The informants have usually been recruited from previous drug busts, where, Gonzalez says, "they are given the come-to-Jesus speech. Work for us or go to jail."
The informants make cases for the agents until their cover is blown, at which time they are paid off and relocated. The money comes from the forfeiture fund, confiscated drug dollars recycled for informants.
Gonzales does remember his informants fondly. "Under other circumstances, we'd be friends," he says. "They're real nice people, with this one character flaw."
In Alaska, the FBI concentrates on bank robberies ("The first question we ask when someone calls in a robbery is, Are you FDIC insured? If you aren't federally insured, we don't have jurisdiction."), bluecollar crimes, environmental crimes, and, lately, domestic terrorism. "We're projecting the trend over the next ten years is toward domestic terrorism," he says, "and unfortunately Montana, Idaho and Alaska are hotbeds of radicalism."
They rely on the state troopers a lot, although the relationship goes both ways. "An FBI profile was used to catch Bob Hansen," says Gonzalez.
The average age of a new FBI agent is 29 or 30. They go through sixteen weeks of training at Quantico -- "They dress you, they feed you, they pay you," Gonzalez says -- studying the law and forensics. "When they issued me my gun, I said, Where's the tripod?" Gonzalez says, laughing. "I have to carry this thing around?" Physical fitness is also stressed. The FBI pays its agents to work out for three hours each week.
"There's nothing in the FBI like the X-Files that I know of," Gonzalez says. "Although I think Scully's hot."