CHICAGO (WLS) -- The former top dog at the DEA in Chicago said he is being courted to come back and lead the agency under President-elect Donald Trump's administration.
Jack Riley told the ABC7 I-Team wealthy supporters in the president's orbit have asked him to come back and run the agency, which he said he is willing to do.
He retired as second in command of the agency in Washington and while overseeing the DEA in Chicago. Riley helped capture and extradite the Sinaloa Cartel's El Chapo to the United States.
"I think DEA, in the last four years, under the outgoing administration, has really been in hibernation," Riley said. "I think we spent more time talking about the people that unfortunately lost their lives from fentanyl to doing something about fentanyl, and I want to change that,"
Riley is not mincing words about his intent to ramp up aggressive drug enforcement efforts across the country and internationally if President-elect Trump asks him to lead the agency.
"Are we doing the best we can to connect the dots? Because I think our foes south of the border are far more sophisticated than our policymakers in Washington realize," Riley said.
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Part of his plan would be attacking local cartel surrogates, who he claims are mainly undocumented immigrants in Chicago and elsewhere.
"Many of them, most of them, make their living putting drugs on the street," Riley said. "So the cartels recognize that, and they have essentially made street gangs, not just in Chicago, but throughout the country. You know, they're subcontractors."
It's a claim Ald. Jesse Fuentes strongly refutes.
"There is no proof of that. It's absolutely ridiculous in my mind," Fuentes said. "Look, if we look at anywhere in the city of Chicago or in this country, on the globe, there are issues that are connected to a drug market that are not just migrants arriving to the United States."
At a time of disorder and disorientation for Mexican cartels with two of El Chapo's sons and former powerful drug lord El Mayo Zambada working to strike deals with U.S. prosecutors, Riley said the new head of the DEA has a chance to make up ground.
"Our opportunity is really good right now to do damage on both sides of the border," Riley said.
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One of the most powerful tools to inflict even more damage to international drug traffickers, Riley said, is designating cartels as terrorist organizations, such as Hamas, which would open up new resources, military assistance and sanction capabilities, something he said President-elect Trump is ready to do.