JAMES EDWARD HOGAN~AMERICAN EMBASSY VICE-CONSUL IN CURACAO 9/24/09

[texasmom]

http://diplopundit.blogspot.com/2009/10/james-hogan-missing-now-for-31-days.html

MONDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2009

James Hogan: Missing Now for 31 Days

US Vice Consul James Hogan was reported missing by his wife on September 25 in Curacao, the Netherlands Antilles. Today marks a month since he went missing. There seems to be no new developments on the search conducted by local authorities in the islands. *I unearthed the video below from YouTube (sorry, no translation available) and another one here*, both talking about the search and the police’s effort in soliciting the public’s assistance in their search. It includes snippets of James Hogan on video.


Digger of Life After Jerusalem pointed out recently that James Hogan just made the promotion from FS-04 to FS-03. The promotion list was dated October 9.


An AP report dated Oct 12, 2009 cited James Hogan’s brother, Paul saying that the family would not comment out of concern for the privacy of the diplomat’s wife and his five children.



On October 18, FS blogger, Globetrotter came back from a three-week TDY in Curacao. He understandably does not have a lot to say except that “It has been an interesting experience, but a difficult one under the circumstances. I'm glad for the opportunity to serve and help out at a trying time.”




This is such a gut-wrenching occasion, I can't even begin to imagine what this must be like to the family and the small community at the US Consulate General in Curacao. What makes me feel really bad is how his disappearance seems to have fallen off the face of the earth just like that ... no more news coverage updating us on the search ...



Related Posts:
US Diplomat James Hogan: 19 Days Missing
DNA Match in James Hogan Search
US Diplomat Missing in Curacao


1 COMMENTS:

 Lee said...
I absolutely agree. I was in A100 with Jim and he was a terrific guy, probably the nicest in our group. I am just sick that there is no media attention, no apparent department attention, and clearly no AFSA attention. Its just awful.

OCTOBER 27, 2009 1:49 AM



*The videos referenced are the same ones that have already been posted on prior pages.

[texasmom]

Abby Hogan
October 19th, 2009 at 9:35 am · Reply

If anyone has stories about my husband, my love of 24 years, I would love to hear them. This note was not passed along to us. I found this blog by chance. Old pix, stories, anything would be welcome, since I didn’t meet him until he was a LT and I was an ENS at HSL33. Jim is a great man, a devout Catholic, a devoted husband and father. I’ve never known another man like him.

http://www.neptunuslex.com/2009/10/03/missing-man/

 

That's sad.  So Paul Hogan, James Hogan's brother did not pass the information along to the family like he said he would after two weeks time?  How long does it take to drop an email with a link?   

I'd come across the original post and response by Paul Hogan not long after he responded.  I didn't post it here because his response included his email address.  But I have seen it posted on another forum since then.  I'm glad you posted it Buckeye because I hadn't been back lately or seen Abby Hogan's response.

http://www.neptunuslex.com/2009/10/03/missing-man/

snip

Rett Rasmussen
October 25th, 2009 at 1:24 pm · Reply
Dear Abby:

I am the USNA Class of 1982 Corresponding Secretary. I write our class column for the Shipmate alumni magazine. I am so very saddened with Jim’s loss and my prayers are with you and your family. Would you like me to pass along to our classmates any particular words about Jim’s life and his passing? Please email me at rett@rasmussen.biz.
My deepest condolences, Rett Rasmussen



Paul Hogan
October 26th, 2009 at 4:35 am · Reply
Unfortunately, Abby is mistaken. She was incommunicado at the time, and very distraught, and the story was sent to two of her adult children with her on Curacoa that same day I posted. If they were unable to pass it on, I’m sure there were many more important issues to deal with at the time. We appreciate all the thoughts and prayers from the Class of 1982. Best wishes, Paul

[MuffyBee]

Lot's of suspicious things about this case, imo.   

[texasmom]

Lot's of suspicious things about this case, imo.   

I agree MuffyBee.   

[texasmom]

http://www.amigoe.com/artman/publish/artikel_64783.php

Google translation:

Great start of criminal and drug-money laundering organization

November 6, 2009, 13:11 (GMT -04:00)

Email this article
Print this article

PHILIPSBURG - The big criminal case to an international gang who dealt in drugs and in money laundering was launched today. In April this year the organization rolled. In total, 18 suspects, of Lebanese, Antillean, Surinamese, Cuban, Colombian and Venezuelan descent, to court.

The case is spread over four days. Today was the first four suspects turn. Small fish, given their share, but they themselves are guilty of criminal offenses.

Against the 26-year-old Valerie E. 4 years was required. She had several times large sums of money to couriers brought at the request of her friend and co-defendant Quincy P.

Also against women Sabrina V. (23) and Dygisma W. (36) was four years required for their share in the drug trade. W. denied a parcel with 9 pounds of cocaine into the Netherlands have sent. V. knew her role well. They dealde especially sofdrugs and became involved in the trade by her boyfriend.

Against the 35-year Glennil C. 3 years was required. He had two firearms, an Uzi and a shotgun, with ammunition for his nephew kept. Then on April 28 was arrested. Glennil firearms anywhere else tried to incorporate them. He was arrested on the street. All four suspects this morning had a clean police record.

At 13, 18 and November 20 are respectively four and five suspects in court. The last two days are reserved for the 'heaviest' suspects. International cooperation between the police and courts of Curacao, Netherlands, Belgium, Colombia, Venezuela and the United States on April 28 led to the collapse of the case. The organization is probably responsible for the import and export of at least 2000 kilograms of cocaine per year.

The Organized Crime Division of the KPC started in early 2008 with a criminal investigation into the organization. These would be responsible for the importation of cocaine and Ecstasy with fast speedboats (go-fast) and cargo from Colombia through Venezuela to Curacao. Containers with cocaine are from Curacao to the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and Jordan have shipped.

Venezuela went from drug containers to West Africa and then to the Netherlands, Lebanon and Spain. Airline passengers as couriers smuggled cocaine from Curacao and Aruba to the Netherlands. This route was also the drugs hidden in cargo. Conversely, the organization smuggled hashish from the Netherlands to Curaçao. Cash Couriers brought the cash proceeds of drug trafficking from Curacao to Venezuela. On Curaçao the organization was also involved in local trade in firearms and ammunition, said the Public Ministry in April.

The suspected drug profits invested in real estate in Colombia, Venezuela, Lebanon, the Dominican Republic and in companies in Curaçao. The organization maintained contacts with other international criminal networks, which in the Middle East Hezbollah financially support the organization. Large sums of money from drug trafficking by underground banking became available in Lebanon. Possibly this was money used to finance terrorist organizations. From Lebanon are also placed orders for large quantities of weapons by drug organizations from South America to be delivered. But actual arms shipments until the time of the arrests no.

During the study, of 551 parties and 408 kilos of cocaine coming from Colombia through Venezuela to Curacao with go-fast were brought intercepted. The Hato airports and Schiphol in several occasions couriers and parcels with a total of 16 kilos of cocaine intercepted. Furthermore, while research on sea containers of cocaine seized in Antwerp (145 pounds), Valencia (20 pounds), Cartagena (22.5 kilos) and Rotterdam (300 pounds).

[texasmom]

http://parlis.nl/kvr38028

Google translation:

Questions from the member Brinkman (PVV) to the Secretary of the Interior and Kingdom Relations about the message "U.S. diplomat in Curacao without trace". (Submitted October 6, 2009); Answer

-------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------

File KVR38028
Contents Indication

Why are five agents of the FBI as research and has not flown to the Netherlands to crime investigations missing diplomat in charge?

Category (s) Constitutional and Administrative Law
Criminal law and criminal procedure
 
Reply with reference Kamervragen 2009-2010, No 369, Lower House
Date 22/10/2009
Date of filing 06/10/2009
Comment Date 15/10/2009
Size 1
Vraagnr. by submitting 2009Z18084
Petitioner Brinkman (PVV)
 
Index 369
Questions from the member Brinkman (PVV)the State of Interior and Kingdom Relations about the message "U.S. Diplomat Curacao trace ". (Submitted October 6 2009)
1
Are you aware of the message "U.S. Diplomat Curacao trace "?
1
2
Is it true that five U.S. agents of the FBI as Research leaders have flown?
3
If so, on what legal basis these five agents in charge of a study on the territory of the Kingdom of Netherlands?
4
Do you share the view that the Netherlands leaders for this crime investigations should provide and that the FBI well this could assist?

If so, how are you making?
5
How shall Netherlands, alongside the Dutch Forensic Institute, currently assisting in this investigation? Is there a need for more assistance?
1
www.telegraaf.nl, October 4, 2009.

Answer
Answer of State
Bijleveld-Schouten (Home
Interior and Kingdom Relations)
(received October 15, 2009)
1
Yes.
2 to 4
There is almost immediately after it was that the Vice Consul of the United States Curacao went missing, a Massive Investigation Team (TGO) established under the overall control of the Attorney General of the Netherlands Antilles. There is a team composed of officials of the Police Corps Curacaoenhet Criminal Investigation Team who work in a twinning relationship.

The research pipeline is very strongly in the Police Corps Curacao and Research Team ????Collaboration. There are an agent of the moment FBI and an agent of the As (US?) State Department liaison officers the research team added.

These officers are fully informed by the research leadership, and maintain contacts with the staff of the American consulate Curacao.
5
Dutch Forensic Institute has provided support in the TGO-structure in the form of forensic expertise. Within 24 hours after .

[texasmom]

http://diplopundit.blogspot.com/2009/10/james-hogan-missing-now-for-31-days.html

MONDAY, OCTOBER 26, 2009

James Hogan: Missing Now for 31 Days

US Vice Consul James Hogan was reported missing by his wife on September 25 in Curacao, the Netherlands Antilles. Today marks a month since he went missing. There seems to be no new developments on the search conducted by local authorities in the islands. I unearthed the video below from YouTube (sorry, no translation available) and another one here, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1y5UDbnKj4 both talking about the search and the police’s effort in soliciting the public’s assistance in their search. It includes snippets of James Hogan on video.

Same one we have posted here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBmo9mucJzs

Digger of Life After Jerusalem pointed out recently that James Hogan just made the promotion from FS-04 to FS-03. The promotion list was dated October 9.


An AP report dated Oct 12, 2009 cited James Hogan’s brother, Paul saying that the family would not comment out of concern for the privacy of the diplomat’s wife and his five children.



On October 18, FS blogger, Globetrotter came back from a three-week TDY in Curacao. He understandably does not have a lot to say except that “It has been an interesting experience, but a difficult one under the circumstances. I'm glad for the opportunity to serve and help out at a trying time.”


This is such a gut-wrenching occasion, I can't even begin to imagine what this must be like to the family and the small community at the US Consulate General in Curacao. What makes me feel really bad is how his disappearance seems to have fallen off the face of the earth just like that ... no more news coverage updating us on the search ...



Related Posts:
US Diplomat James Hogan: 19 Days Missing
DNA Match in James Hogan Search
US Diplomat Missing in Curacao




POSTED BY: DOMANI SPERO AT 9:25 PM [PERMALINK] 
TAGS FOREIGN SERVICE, FSOS, U.S. MISSIONS
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1 COMMENTS:

 Lee said...
I absolutely agree. I was in A100 with Jim and he was a terrific guy, probably the nicest in our group. I am just sick that there is no media attention, no apparent department attention, and clearly no AFSA attention. Its just awful.

OCTOBER 27, 2009 1:49 AM

_______________________________________________________________________________

http://diplopundit.blogspot.com/2009/11/vice-consul-james-hogan-1440-hours.html

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 24, 2009

Vice Consul James Hogan: 1,440 Hours Missing

US Vice Consul James Edward Hogan disappeared on the night of September 24. He was reported missing by his wife, the following day. As of today, he has been missing for 60 days with no new report on the development of the search in the Netherlands Antilles. He has now been missing for 1,440 hours.


It seems like the only site that still continues to track news of his disappearance is the Scared Monkeys Missing Persons Site.



The State Department addressed the disappearance of Mr. Hogan, from best I could tell, on three occasions during the Daily Press Brief in October.


Daily Press Briefing - October 1

Daily Press Briefing - October 2

Daily Press Briefing - October 5



An email inquiry sent to Timothy J. Dunn, the Chief of Mission/Consul General at the US Consulate General in Curacao has not been returned. Nothing on its website indicates that one of its three officers has gone missing or that there is a search going on.

In contrast, when US Defense Attaché, Thomas Mooney disappeared from the US Embassy in Cyprus on June 28, 2007, the U.S. Embassy there issued a public appeal for information on the whereabouts of Colonel Mooney. The NYT reported that “an announcement posted on the embassy’s Web site urged anyone with information “which might be helpful in locating him” to contact the police.”

And at the sad conclusion of LTC Thomas Mooney’s disappearance, then Ambassador Ronald Schlicher released an official statement also posted on its embassy’s website.


POSTED BY: DOMANI SPERO AT 9:30 AM [PERMALINK] 
TAGS AMBASSADORS, FOREIGN SERVICE, FSOS, U.S. MISSIONS
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______________________________________________________________________________

http://diplopundit.blogspot.com/2009/12/james-hogan-now-cold-case.html



THURSDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2009

James Hogan: Now a Cold Case?

AP reported a few days ago that the police spokesman in Curacao acknowledged that they have no new leads on the disappearance of Vice Consul James Hogan who was reported missing by his wife on September 25 in the Netherlands Antilles. Investigators are reportedly considering all possibilities. The report also states that a State Department spokesman Darby Holladay declined to comment on this matter. The Background Note for the Netherland Antilles even in the redesigned website of State.gov still has James E. Hogan listed as one of the three principal US officials in the country.

I can’t imagine what this must be like for his wife and children, most especially during the holidays. Our thought and prayers for the family. May they find a place inside where there's joy, and the joy help burn out the pain of his absence.

POSTED BY: DOMANI SPERO AT 10:01 AM [PERMALINK] 
TAGS FOREIGN SERVICE, FSOS, STATE DEPARTMENT, U.S. MISSIONS
TECHNORATI LINKS • SPHERE: RELATED CONTENT • DISCUSS ON NEWSVINE • STUMBLE IT! • ADD TO DEL.ICIO.US • EMAIL THIS • ADD TO MIXX!

[texasmom]

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gH_Ebn3Z80d0mZh7qmEDDvZaCNIwD9CN8F8G5

Curacao: Case of missing US diplomat going cold

(AP) – Dec 20, 2009

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Curacao detectives are still trying to solve the disappearance of a U.S. diplomat whose bloodied clothes were found nearly three months ago on a rocky beach, a police official said Sunday.

Police spokesman Alfred Suarez says the missing-person case remains open. But he says that there have been no new leads since police broadcast a video in October asking islanders for more information on the last known whereabouts of U.S. Vice Consul James Hogan.

The 49-year-old American official vanished Sept. 24 after leaving his Curacao home for one of his regular late-night walks.

Police said a trail of Hogan's blood was found on rocks leading to the water at Baya Beach, where his clothes were folded neatly. An expensive kitchen knife and Hogan's cell phone were found in the water just off the beach.

Curacao investigators have said they are considering all possibilities, including suicide.

In the days after Hogan's disappearance, the local coast guard and the U.S. Navy scoured the shoreline. Newspapers published missing-person fliers with Hogan's photo.

U.S. State Department spokesman Darby Holladay declined to comment Sunday.

Hogan, a Florida resident, arrived in Curacao in August 2008 for a two-year assignment. The Dutch island off the coast of Venezuela is the seat of the Netherlands Antilles government.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

[texasmom]

He did not commit suicide!  JMO   

[texasmom]

http://missingexploited.com/2007/07/01/thomas-mooney-45-american-diplomat-us-defense-attache-missing-in-cyprus/

Interesting similarities to this case.  Read the comments from those that knew Thomas Mooney.

More about Thomas Mooney:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_K._Mooney

[texasmom]

I meant to add, thank goodness Thomas Mooney's body was found so he could be given a proper burial, and his family does not have to wonder where he is.

 

[texasmom]

?

[texasmom]

?

[texasmom]

I promise it showed a broken link before I posted it again!   

[texasmom]

?

A drawing/carving in the stone? 

[Nut44x4]

Is it Jesus? 

[texasmom]

Is it Jesus? 

It could be a drawing of him I guess.  What I see looks like the profile of someone in a robe like Jesus is seen in drawings...or a priest or saint maybe.  I had to stop looking at the blown up picture I was seeing eyes and faces all over that stone! 

 

[texasmom]

I'd read a few articles about the so called "death list" over the past month, but didn't think to bring them over here.  I came across this one today, don't know if it might apply to this case or not but found it interesting.

http://www.rnw.nl/nl/caribiana/article/incidenten-ontsieren-verkiezingsstrijd-cura%C3%A7ao

Google translation:

Incidents mar election Curacao

Published: December 15, 2009 - 4:48 pm | by Editor Caribiana

Read more about: Gerrit Schotte Lista pa Kambio Omayra Leeflang PAR election

Some bizarre incidents mar the election campaign in Curaçao. For instance, a prominent politician Tuesday morning (local time) announced that his dogs were poisoned. Monday was a minister has declared a death threat to its employees.

The Antilles vote on January 22 next year for the States, the Antillean parliament. Curaçao has a tradition of fierce election campaign, it seldom violence played a role.

Former commissioner Gerrit Schotte of the largest opposition party Lista pa Kambio which one of the most remarkable and extensive campaigns, was struck Tuesday morning. He reported a local
radio station that his two Rottweilers that morning lay dead in his garden. He assumes that they are poisoned by political opponents. Autopsy is performed on the animals.

Minister Omayra Leeflang (Education and Health) of PAR ruling party on Monday reported a threat to some of her advisers, according to an anonymous informant
a dead list. The case concerns a dispute between the minister and a local university on the recognition of qualifications.

(Reuters)

[jen3560]

A drawing/carving in the stone? 

Could it be a blood stain?

[trimmonthelake]

http://www.tiwy.com/news.phtml?id=151
 January 8, 2010
The US Drug War, or the Curacao Contact

Nil Nikandrov - http://en.fondsk.ru

Vice Council of the US Consulate General Curacao James Edward Hogan left his home on foot late at night on September 24, 2009 for one of his regular walks. Used to them, his wife reported him missing only the next morning. Search for Hogan, initialy conducted by the US Consulate staff and intelligence agents, began without much publicity. The local authorities were notified only when Hogan's clothes covered with blood were found.

The incident became widely known shortly thereafter. Local media floated various stories including Hogan's leaving his wife for another woman, imitating his own death to let his wife get the life insurance payment, or being killed as an act of revenge by the drug mafia with which he allegedly had ties. Gradually the drug-related version grew dominant. The media discovered that Hogan had worked for the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and had served as a trade representative in Africa after receiving additional training. It appeared that - as an operative - he indeed dealt with drug-trafficking groups. If he was dead, who could have killed him and why?

Scrupulous journalists invoked a recent raid against a drug cartel which supplied cocaine from Colombia to the US, Middle East, Holland, Belgium, and Denmark. The major operation had been carried out last April by DEA in Curacao and Aruba with the help of the local police. The 17 people arrested in the case were Colombians, Surinamese, Curacao and Aruba natives, Venezuelans, and Cubans. As usual, DEA supplied no details concerning the Venezuelan and Cuban members of the group, thus creating a pretext for a media campaign charging Havana and Caracas with involvement in drug trafficking.
Moreover, 4 individuals from Lebanon had also been arrested during the raid, which made it possible for the media to pick up the version that Hezbollah terrorists were getting drugs from their Venezuelan partners. DEA has tried for a decade but failed to discover any links between Venezuela and Hezbollah's drug groups, but no doubt new propaganda campaigns targeting Venezuela are in the making. Some elements of the fictional scenario – allegations that speed motorboats delivered cocaine from Venezuela to Curacao - have already been leaked to the media. Motorboats carrying drugs from South America to the Caribbean Islands are a reality, but the truth is that they are registered in Colombia. DEA is known to greenlight the drug trafficking under its own control while suppressing the competition in the business highly profitable for the US (and DEA), which is posed by “unaffiliated” players. US agencies treat Curacao, Aruba, and Bonaire as their own backyard. For DEA, Hollywood-style episodes with bad cops putting drugs into the pockets of innocent people, etc. are routine practice. Not surprisingly, some Latin American countries are deporting DEA operatives and refusing to cooperate with the US agency.
The US SOUTHCOM maintains the so-called Forward Operating Locations (FOLs) on Curacao and Aruba. They are equipped with advanced air and naval surveillance facilities and the electronic equipment capable of intercepting all types of communications. As a result, the islands are closely watched and the existence of “independent” criminal groups on them is absolutely impossible. Seaports, airfields, banking, the real estate sector, administration, and diplomatic missions on Curacao and Aruba are defenseless against the US monitoring and heavily infiltrated by Washington's agents. The only surviving drug groups in Curacao are those used by DEA in its strategic games. Obviously, DEA planed the recent raid against a Curacao drug group as a major provocation against Venezuela, but the operation collapsed as no real Chavez's envoys or Hezbollah terrorists were caught. Then the story about individuals from Lebanon coming to Curacao was invented – if you are ready to believe that anyone from Lebanon is a Hezbollah member, they must have been drug traffickers and terrorists.

One might say the fabrication is too naive for DEA, the CIA, or any other US agencies, but they are facing stiff inter-departmental competition and are under pressure to churn out results to justify their enormous budgets. As a result, almost any “information” is regarded as usable. While DEA is saying that Venezuela and Ecuador are among the leading drug producers, Latin America's number one drug factory supplying plastic-packaged narcotics to all parts of the world is Colombia. The country's extensive drug network employs its own financial centers, carefully maintained routes, corrupt officers at customs checkpoints and in police forces, etc. This activity would have been impossible without the help of DEA, the secret agency with its own logistics and system of analysis.
Videos showing thousands of confiscated packages containing cocaine are regularly featured on Venezuelan TV channels. The country's law enforcement agencies became a lot more efficient since the expulsion of DEA. Currently they are uprooting the drug network DEA had been cultivating for years both to earn money and to compromise Chavez and his regime. When Venezuela opposed the Honduran coup and made efforts to reinstate the country's legitimate President Jose Manuel Zelaya, Washington claimed Chavez was keenly interested in Honduras as an intermediate base for supplying drugs to Mexico and the US. A typical case of blame-shifting!

Zelaya was the first Honduran President who was not a total US puppet. His predecessors readily and profitably cooperated with DEA. The independent Zelaya who re-emerged as a populist leader ruined the plans of the US super-cartel which had turned Honduras into its base in Central America. The Honduran drug chronicles illustrate the proportions of the “commercial” aspect of DEA activity. Crushes or interceptions of planes loaded with drugs are reported nearly every week. Speed motorboats registered in Honduran seaports deliver cocaine and heroine to Mexico and the US East Coast, and only a fraction of the traffic – that with no ties to DEA – gets intercepted.
DEA made a crucial contribution to the coup in Honduras as the majority of the country's army command used to be on its payroll. Much to the displeasure of DEA, Zelaya planned to purge the corrupt officers corps. The November, 29 “election” of Porfirio Lobo Sosa as the President of Honduras coincided in time with the assassination of Gen. Julian Aristides Gonzalez, director general of the National Office for Combating Drug Trafficking, by two gunmen riding motorcycles in Tegucigalpa. Reportedly, Gonzalez was going to write a book about his transactions with DEA and had a lot to tell about its ties with the Honduran cartels.

No doubt, Colombia is the leader in drug production. Bolivian President Evo Morales said recently that the US deliberately reiforces the negative processes in Colombia such as the escalation of its domestic armed conflict, the surge of the paramilitary movements, and the expansion of drug groups to justify its continued presence in the country and to use it as a foothold in the struggle against the region's populist regimes.

Destructive processes are gaining momentum in Mexico, also with a major contribution from DEA. The drug war with a death toll higher than that of the US in Afghanistan is the coutry's permanent condition. It took over 9,000 lives in 2009, many of those killed being police officers and army servicemen. The confrontation in Mexico is unbelievably ferrocious. Beheaded and mutilated corpses in plastic bags are found in its cities daily. Drug cartels are not only fighting for control over Mexico's regions but also over parts of the neighboring Guatemala. One of America's top undercover agents Michael Levine retired from DEA in 1989 after 25 years of service. Disillusioned, he authored Deep Cover: The Inside Story of How DEA Infighting, Incompetence and Subterfuge Lost Us the Biggest Battle of the Drug War, in which he stated that the US war against drugs is essentialy a pretext for covert operations abroad. Levine took part in a number of operations that could be crowned with arrests of the key figures of the drug business underworld, but every time his superiors told to leave them at large. He faced threats from DEA seniors when he attempted to reveal facts compromising the agency.

The current situation in DEA is even more sinister than it used to be in the 1980ies. In the situation of the unprecedented financial crisis the drug business rose from the tactic to the strategic level. The annual drug business revenue ranges from $700 bn to $1 trilion, which is comparable to the revenues generated by all oil companies.

Chances are slim that James Edward Hogan is alive. One of his operative contacts unexpectedly called him the night he went missing, and his mobile phone was found later in the water near the place where he supposedly had been killed. It is possible that, as it had happened before on Curacao, the assasination was an act of revenge perpetrated by the members of the cartel who had evaded arrest. Tens of FBI, CIA, and DEA operatives continue to investigate Hogan's disappearance. Whatever happens, the struggle over dominance over the drug markets will go on.