embassy events

Wiretapping is Common in Uncovering Drug Criminality

Assistant U.S. Attorney, Western District of Wisconsin John Vaudreuil told Pravo

By Pavel Blažek

You are the Assistant Attorney in Wisconsin specializing in the prosecution of drug criminality.  What is the reason of your visit to the CR?
      I am here on a working visit.  I was invited by the [Czech] Justice Ministry.  I delivered lectures at the Judicial Academy, at the Police Academy and at the National Anti-drug Center.  The subject of my speeches was the prosecution of drug related crimes.  I focused on the collection and use of evidence in court, the utilization of operational investigative tools in prosecuting criminal drug activities.  I also focused on the importance of wiretapping, the use of undercover agents, plea bargaining and the possibility of confiscating property of criminal origin.

The issue of wiretapping is a very sensitive one in our country.  Many Czech politicians claim that there is too much wiretapping done in this country and that it poses a threat to privacy freedom.  What is the situation in the U.S.?
In the U.S., the relevant law says that wiretapping to which neither party consented must first be given in a court order.  Such wiretapping is under strict control and privacy protection. 

      When investigating drug crimes, we commonly use wiretapping but nearly always we have the agreement of one side of the telephone call.  For those, we do not need a court order.   These telephone recordings, done with the consent of one of the parties – for example a co-operating citizen or an undercover agent -- are done routinely.  From about the one thousand cases I worked on, this procedure was used in at least 900 hundred of them.  This kind of wiretapping is very effective and can be used as evidence in court.  This is the reason why we in the U.S. do not have to fall back that much on wiretapping that requires a court order.

In how many of your cases did you have to use the court ordered wiretaps?
I have been a federal attorney for 25 years and I dealt with more than one thousand cases.  In only three or four of these did we have to use court ordered wiretaps.

How do you persuade people to agree with taping their calls?
I’ll give you an example.  Policemen stop a driver and when they search his car they find one kilogram of drugs.  He’s in big trouble.  This person may be given the option of cooperating with the police.  He may be asked to disclose the identity of the people who gave him the drug, or the police may ask him to call the drug dealers with the understanding that the phone call will be taped.  This is what we call a one-sided agreement on wiretapping.  The same applies if a police agent pretends to buy drugs from a drug dealer over the phone.  That is a common method.

You said that using secret police agents is an important method in the fight against drug related criminality.  How is this method used in the U.S. and is it effective?
It can be a policeman in civilian clothes who approaches a group of drug dealers and pretends to buy drugs.  It is very important that this policeman does not engage in a police provocation.  That he does not try to persuade someone to commit a crime.  These operations are carefully prepared and documented to prove in court that it was not a police provocation.

The bill on plea bargaining was not passed in the Czech parliament this year.  You say that in the U.S., it is an important tool in the fight against drug mafia.  How would you assess the importance of plea bargaining as a prosecution method and how do you persuade people to take it on?
Let’s take the example of a person arrested while selling drugs on the street.  We explain to him and to his attorney that if the arrested person cooperates with the police against his former accomplices, his sentence will be decreased.  Most people accept such an offer.  In this way we manage to penetrate drug cartels and disclose their crimes.  In the U.S., the punishment for drug dealing is severe.  Very severe indeed.

Can you be more specific about the penalties?
If we catch a person selling for example five grams of crack, the penalty set by law is 5 to 40 years in jail.  The judge cannot pass a sentence under five years.  For holding fifty grams of crack, the sentence goes from 10 years to a life sentence.

Both Czech and American authorities have the ability to confiscate profits from criminal activities.  What is the practice in the U.S.?
It is one of the priorities of the U.S. Department of Justice and the anti-drug police DEA.  Under the law, we can confiscate all resources and all property that was used to commit crime.  That can mean a car, in which someone went to sell drugs, or a house, from which meetings were arranged.  These things we can confiscate immediately under U.S. law.

We have the right to confiscate all profits that originated from criminal activities.  This can be cash or anything that the perpetrator bought with this money – real estate, villas, expensive cars, airplanes, boats, mink fur coat bought for a girlfriend.  All this is confiscated.

Our policy is to confiscate property even in minor criminal offences.  It does not matter if we are talking about two thousand dollars or an old used car.  We always confiscate.  It is an absolutely common, widely used method.

What will your impressions be when returning home to Wisconsin?
I like your country very much.  I would love to return.