They were brought together by
happenstance while both were assigned to the "El Dorado Task Force,"
operating out of the World Trade Center. A raid on three wire remitters
in Queens, New York uncovered huge amounts of drug money being sent to
three tiny villages in Colombia that no one had ever heard of.
Neither the Justice Department
nor the Treasury Department seemed terribly concerned with where the
money was going, as long as this flow of drug cash was stopped.
But Bonnie and Rooney wanted to know more.
Working together out of her
tiny office in the implausible outpost of Hauppauge, Long Island, they
set off on a 13 year journey to dismantle --- systematically --- the
Colombian cartel responsible for 60% of all the cocaine coming into the
United States.
Her superiors at Justice and
his superiors at what was then Immigration and Customs Enforcement were
quick to write them both off as dreamers.
Management believed there were
enough drug dealers in the greater New York area to keep everyone busy
for a long time. Taking down a barbarous gang of traffickers and
murderers 2500 miles away, was pure fantasy.
But Bonnie wasn't so sure.
And Rooney didn't care what they thought.
