Counterintelligence and Narcotics

COUNTERINTELLIGENCE AND NARCOTICS
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Counterintelligence and Narcotics
Introduction
Drug trafficking organizations are an enduring and developing domestic criminal threat to America and continue to be a significant concern to local, state, and federal law enforcement officials. The Colombian drug trafficking organization is one of the biggest distributors of illicit drugs, especially cocaine and heroin, in the United States. In addition, Colombia is among the largest coca bush-producing nations globally. Several innovative programs by the Colombian government and the international community have tried to stem the illicit drug trade. Various agencies have spent close to $39 billion between the fiscal years 2010 through 2015 in the fight against drug trafficking in the Western Hemisphere. These intelligence initiatives at combating the Colombian drug trafficking organization have helped disrupt the production and flow of illicit drugs, dismantling the various drug organizations in the country that control them.[U.S. Government Accountability Office, “Counter-narcotics: Overview of U.S. Efforts in the Western Hemisphere,” , October 25, 2017, /products/gao-18-10.]
Even though these inter-agency efforts have not completely stopped drug trafficking activities in Central America, an inter-agency approach to counter-narcotics involving various intelligence collection disciplines effectively learns and degrades the capabilities of drug trafficking organizations. This report will evaluate the effectiveness of various intelligence collection disciplines applicable to the U.S. counter-narcotics mission by developing a counter-narcotics strategy against Colombia's Drug Trafficking Organizations (DTO). The counter-narcotics plan against Colombia's DTO will employ four intelligence collection disciplines: Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT), Human Intelligence (HUMINT), Signals Intelligence (SIGINT), and Imagery Intelligence (MINT). Moreover, the plan will involve an inter-agency team including the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), National Security Agency (NSA), and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA).
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Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT)
Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) refers to the process of collecting and analyzing data contained in publicly accessible sources and using it in an intelligence context. The rise of instant communications and rapid information transfer has allowed various counter-narcotics intelligence agencies to obtain actionable and predictive intelligence from open public sources. These include the media (radio, print newspapers, and television), Internet (citizen media, social media websites, and discussion groups), public government data (press conferences, websites, hearings, and speeches), professional as well as academic publications (conferences, journals, and symposia), and grey literature (unpublished works, preprints, newsletters, and working papers). The U.S. National Intelligence office director will steer mining of publicly available information to collect valuable and actionable intelligence about the Colombian drug traffick...