Man claiming CIA connection gets drug case tossed
Says he offered to help DEA track terrorists
By Frank Main
Allen Long, who claims he was using his drug-smuggling connections to identify crooked customs agents when he was busted in Chicago for possession of about 1,200 pounds of marijuana, was freed this week after spending more than a year in the Cook County Jail.
Judge Kenneth Wadas on Monday dismissed the case because Long is heard on a government tape recording saying, "This is not mine. This is not what I packed," according to Peter Vilkelis, one of his attorneys.
The tape was made by a Drug Enforcement Administration informant wearing a wire during Long's 2006 arrest in a Southwest Side warehouse, Vilkelis said.
Long has claimed he met with a DEA official in 2005 to offer to use his drug connections to identify terrorists. Long claims post-9/11 patriotism led him to make the offer. The DEA official, Alex Toth, introduced Long to a CIA official in Washington to discuss the plan dubbed "Operation WeedEater," Long says.
Long, 58, of Virginia, says the CIA official encouraged him to start making contacts with smugglers. But the CIA official has told authorities that he did not "sign up" Long. Instead, he says he directed Long to the Joint Terrorism Task Force in Baltimore, according to Vilkelis.
Long claims he launched his undercover anti-terrorism plan and identified corrupt U.S. customs agents in Mexico at a prescreening facility for trucks crossing the border.
Long said he was tracking a marijuana shipment tied to the customs officials when he was arrested by the Illinois State Police in March 2006 at a warehouse at 4220 W. 47th St. along with Ricardo Juarez, who was helping him. Long and Juarez were charged with possession of about 1,200 pounds of marijuana. But Long insisted the marijuana in the warehouse was packaged differently than the pot he was tracking, Vilkelis said.
On Monday, the judge also dropped charges against Juarez, who was represented by attorney John DeLeon.
Toth, the DEA official, was in court but did not testify, Vilkelis said. The Cook County state's attorney's office would not comment on Long's alleged ties to the DEA or the CIA.
Long's drug smuggling exploits in the 1970s and 1980s were chronicled in Robert Sabbag's 2002 book Smoke Screen.
Sabbag estimated Long imported nearly 1 million pounds of pot into the United States, sometimes in C-130 transport planes. Long served a prison term for drug smuggling in the 1990s.
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