He number two of the DEA had to resign quietly a few weeks ago after it was revealed that for years he had been working for Purdue Pharma, one of the companies responsible for the opioid epidemic currently rocking the United States.
Is about Louis Milione, an official who worked for more than 23 years in this anti-drug agency until June when the AP Agency began asking questions about his past in this pharmaceutical and other drug manufacturers.
Until that moment, Milione was the DEA’s Deputy Principal Administrator, second most powerful position behind Anne Milgram, who has served as Administrator since June 2021.
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The DEA, in fact, did not even report Milione’s departure but he removed his resume from the agency’s portal three weeks ago and put that of George Papadopoulos, his successor.
The former official is considered a kind of legend in the DEA for, among other things, a case related to Colombia. This is because he was in charge of the operation that led to the arrest in 2008 of Viktor Bout, the so-called “merchant of death.”
Bout, a Russian citizen who was engaged in arms trafficking, fell in Bangkok in an operation organized by the DEA where officials posed as FARC members interested in buying surface-to-air missiles and machine guns.
He was extradited to the US in 2010, where he was accused of providing material support to a terrorist group (the Farc), and was later sentenced to 25 years in prison.
In December last year, he was freed in a trade between Russia and the US for basketball player Britney Griner, who had been arrested in Moscow for possession of marijuana.
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What is behind the departure of Louis Milione?
Milione initially worked at the DEA until 2017 after a long career of 21 years. However, in the next four years he moved to the private sector where He worked as a consultant for Purdue Pharma, just when the pharmaceutical company was being prosecuted in various courts around the country for the damage caused by Oxycontin, an opiate developed by this company that was marketed as non-addictive.
The drug, which is actually wildly addictive, is considered the origin of the addiction epidemic. and overdose deaths that broke out in the US at the turn of this millennium.
Every year, according to official figures, more than 10,000 Americans die from overdoses associated with opioid use.
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The company eventually pleaded guilty and agreed to a payment of US$6 billion to be distributed among the victims.
In his years at Perdue Pharma, Milione earned up to US$600 an hour (about 2.5 million in Colombian pesos). and he advised them, according to the AP, precisely to counteract the lawsuits in the courts.
A role that is legal but questionable given that Milione, at the time of his retirement, headed precisely the arm of the agency that persecuted these laboratories.
But what ended up being quite a scandal is that after his work with Purdue Pharma he returned to the DEA in 2021 to serve as Milgram’s deputy and that his past did not create a conflict of interest.
According to sources consulted by this newspaper in this agency, upon his return the official withdrew from any case related to pharmaceutical companies to avoid this conflict and they stressed that it is not unusual for former officials to move into the private sector when they leave the agency.
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In a statement given to the AP, Milione contends that his role as a consultant helped drug companies comply with DEA rules, just as his later return to government gave the DEA information about how drug companies operate.
But in Congress they are furious over the decision to hire him and have scheduled a hearing this week with Administrator Milgram where they plan to discuss this case.
SERGIO GOMEZ MASERI
EL TIEMPO correspondent
Washington
On twitter @sergom68
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