WHAT'S A KILO?

Kilo is short for kilogram, equivalent to 2.2 pounds.

WHAT'S A KILO WORTH?

When law enforcement agents seize drugs, they estimate the value to a dealer. The current value of drugs, depending on purity:

• Cocaine $10,500 to $40,000 a kilo.
• Heroin $100,000 to $250,000 a kilo.
• Marijuana $285 to $3,500 a pound.

WHO'S MINDING THE STORE?

• Two federal agencies, Customs and the Drug Enforcement Administration, and one V.I. agency, the Narcotics Strike Force, are the ones that operate busts resulting in seizures of large quantities of drugs.
• Customs and the V.I. agents are, by policy, supposed to turn over the drugs to the DEA.
• The DEA keeps no more than 40 pounds for use at trial; it destroys the rest.
• The DEA keeps drugs needed for trial in safes or well-secured areas. After trial, it destroys the drugs.
• The V.I. police and Strike Force do not follow a consistent procedure for handling, storing or turning over control of drugs.

Antiguan drug dealer Mike Tyrell is soured on the Virgin Islands.

Tyrell says that in the late 1980s, he shipped 1,200 pounds of marijuana, which Narcotics Strike Force agents confiscated on the beach. They arrested the crewman -- and charged him with possession of 500 pounds of marijuana.

Tyrell still wants to know what the agents did with his other 700 pounds.

"The Virgin Islands is one of the most dishonest places in the world," he complains.

"Agents on the Strike Force are pretty much on their own. They do pretty much what they please." ---Fitzroy Brann, ex-agent for Narcotics Strike Force

RIGHT & WRONG

Police Field Manual regulations require that illegal drugs or narcotics be weighed before being submitted to the Crime Laboratory in order to establish control over the quantities submitted. However, our comparison of three arrest records and of forensic examination reports disclosed inconsistencies in the method used to measure and account for the substances submitted for analysis.

Inspector General's report
January 1994

THE WRONG WAY

Police Sgt. Liston Gumbs shows the exact spot inside the crime lab where $1 million worth of confiscated cocaine was left out on the floor, unattended, overnight. The cocaine vanished.