Heroin Smuggled in Body Bags of GIs
Reported by Military Eye Witness

 

Dear friends,

 

WantToKnow.info received the below email on April 20, 2004. It is written by a career military man who personally witnessed a very large-scale drug smuggling case with likely involvement by elements of the US government and military. At the end of this email, you can see how we are working to powerfully get this news out in the open.

 

Email from Bob Kirkconnell To WantToKnow.info

 

I am Bob Kirkconnell, a retired Air Force chief master sergeant.  I spent 27 years on active duty, and now teach high school.  I was involved in an investigation of heroin smuggling into the US using killed-in-action human remains out of Vietnam.  This happened in 1972 or 1973, and since then I have been looking for any information that would explain the whole picture.  Your web site is the first info I have been able to find in over 30 years.

 

I was an Air Transportation Supervisor in those days stationed at Kadena Air Base, Okinawa, Japan.  One day we had an Air Force C-5 come in that was only scheduled for a few hours servicing (intransit), and then to continue on to Travis Air Force Base, California.  This plane contained between 80 and 90 transfer cases (87 is the number I recall) containing human remains, killed-in-action, out of Vietnam.  When it arrived, the plane broke, went into maintenance, and we had to order parts that would take over 24 hours to receive.

 

On intransit aircraft, Japanese customs did not get involved unless the plane was going to be on the ground more than 24 hours.  This was the case with this C-5.  After the plane was fixed we noticed that the two couriers for the human remains could not be located.  This was highly unusual.  One of the couriers was an Army major and the other was an Army master sergeant.  We started looking for them and notified Japanese customs that something was very suspicious.  We discovered that the master sergeant had take another flight to Hawaii.  The name he was traveling under was Sutherland.  We never did find the major, and I do not recall his name.

 

Japanese customs opened the transfer cases and found that all of the bodies had had their internal organs removed, and that they were stuffed with bags of pure heroin.  An Air Force Office of Special Investigations, OSI, agent contacted me and told me "not to release any documents pertaining to the incident to anyone but him."  One of my responsibilities was for processing and storage of all cargo and passenger documentation.  He told me that he would let me know what he needed at a later date.  I passed this info on to my people that worked the night shift.  That night an Army investigator from Criminal Investigations Division, CID, came to the records section and demanded these records.  He threatened to put our personnel in jail for obstructing an investigation, etc.  The shift supervisor refused to give him the records, and eventually he went away.

 

Master Sergeant Sutherland (this was an alias) was apprehended in Hawaii a few days later, and was charged with several offenses.  He was tried in a federal court in Washington, DC, and one of our captains testified at the trial.  The OSI agent in Okinawa came to me before the trial and signed for all related documentation (orders, aircraft manifest, etc.).  He sent this via US registered mail, signature service required, to the federal prosecutor in Washington.

 

The evidence never got to the court.  I know this because I was concerned that the records needed to be returned to the files, and I inquired about them about once a week.  The OSI agent eventually told me that the records had disappeared and signed a statement that the documentation was missing and could not be returned.  I put this in the files.  He also told me that Sutherland was convicted of only one charge--unauthorized wear of a US military uniform.  None of the other charges were proven because of lack of evidence.  He also told me that Sutherland was not his real name, and that he and the major with him had never been in the Army.

 

I knew this OSI agent because I had researched several other cases of drug smuggling on military aircraft.  I usually did not ask him questions which I thought he was not at liberty to answer.  He always told me everything that I needed to know to research illegal activities.  Most of the cases were relatively smalltime drug smuggling.  This case was something that was way over-the-top.  All of us that knew the enormity of this case were flabbergasted.  The forged documentation was flawless and had to have been done by experts in the air transportation field.  Also, our people who saw the two impostors said that their uniforms and ID cards were perfect.

 

Further, when we talked about this, we were astounded with the enormity of this operation.  The mortuary in Vietnam had to have put the heroin in the bodies, and the one at Travis Air Force Base, California had to remove the heroin, and it had to be distributed, ID cards had to be obtained, orders had to be made, etc.  This was no smalltime operation.

 

I never forgot this event and it changed the way I looked at things from that time on.  I recall hearing Maxine Waters, Congresswoman from California, talk about the FBI dumping enormous quantities of heroin in the inner-cities to destroy the social fabric of black communities.  I also think about the fact that about one-third of African American males have criminal records and cannot vote in many states.  And then there was Iran-Contra that involved cocaine smuggling.  I wonder about the so-called "War on Drugs."  Maybe it is really a war against African Americans.  I also notice that Afghanistan has a bumper crop of opium, and I wonder if that might have had something to do with our invasion and the Northern Alliance taking over much of the country.  Finally, I have never been stationed on an Air Base that I didn't suspect was being used for drug smuggling.

 

No, I have not read the book you mentioned, but I think I will.  If there is anything that I have not made clear or any other info that you need please let me know.

 

Bob Kirkconnell

 

 

How We Responded

 

We forwarded the above email to Mike Levine, a member of the WantToKnow.info team. Mike is a 25-year veteran of the DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) turned best-selling author and journalist. Currently, he hosts the popular Expert Witness radio show on WBAI in New York. His articles and interviews on the drug war have been published in numerous national newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and Esquire.

 

Upon receiving this forwarded email, Mike was most interested in Bob's account. As a top DEA agent, Mike was involved himself in a very similar case. Here is a quote from Mike on his experience, "The Chang Mai ‘factory’ that the CIA prevented me from destroying was the source of massive amounts of heroin being smuggled into the US in the bodies and body bags of GIs killed in Vietnam. Case after case was killed by CIA and State Department intervention, and there wasn’t a thing we could do about it." You can read more about this on our website at www.WantToKnow.info/massmedia#levine.

 

Bob and Mike eventually had a deeply moving radio interview on New York's WBAI on June 21, 2004, titled "The Vietnam Body Bag Case." If you are willing to pay the $52 annual membership fee, you can listen to this powerful interview by going to: http://www.expertwitnessradio.org/archives/. Mike wrote me an email saying: "The show on the body bag case was very emotional to both of us...we were both loyal servicemen whose notions of how any US government agency were crushed...and the show is the very first time real witnesses to those horrific events came together to compare notes...anyone who hears the show will most certainly be affected." The news is getting out!

 

We are getting the word out. Many thanks to both Bob and Mike for their courage in speaking openly about these important experiences. By sharing information freely with the help of email and the Internet, we are helping to wake many people up. Thank you for helping to spread the word. Together, we are creating positive transformation in this world. Take care and have a great day!

 

With very best wishes,

Fred Burks for the WantToKnow.info team