September 17, 2020

The Honorable Michael Pompeo

Secretary of State
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, D.C. 20520

Dear Mr. Secretary:

We write to request your assistance to seek the return of Victor Stemberger to the United States on
humanitarian grounds and request information about the Department’s knowledge of a DHS program
called Operation COCOON. On July 30, a Spanish court found Mr. Stemberger, our constituent, guilty
of drug smuggling and sentenced him to seven years in prison, rejecting his defense that he was duped
into acting as a drug mule for a West Africa criminal network. Mr. Stemberger, 77, is a Vietnam veteran
who served 24 years in the U.S. Army. To our knowledge, he has never been in trouble with the law.
The circumstances of his arrest — as well as his advanced age — give us pause and concern.

According to news reports, the case began in March 2018 with an email from someone purporting to be
a financial consultant with Nigeria’s foreign ministry and inviting Mr. Stemberger into a business
opportunity that carried the prospect of a lucrative payout. The job allegedly entailed traveling abroad to
deliver gifts and documents to officials, with a goal of recovering funds that were misallocated. In July
2019, he traveled to Brazil on a trip that was to take him to Spain and on to Asia. Sources claim his
contacts told him officials would be visiting his Sao Paolo hotel room to help transfer the gifts into
luggage but that Mr. Stemberger continued to believe the work was legitimate. The following day Mr.
Stemberger was arrested in Madrid after he was found with cocaine sewn into bubble jackets in a bag.

Mr. Stemberger and his family say he knew nothing about the drugs, and a retired DEA agent Robert
Zachariasiewicz, whose investigative firm has worked with the family on the case, said the 161 pages of
emails he’s reviewed make clear that “he’s completely unwitting.” 1 His family also explains that Mr.
Stemberger suffered a brain aneurysm in 2005 that greatly diminished his logic and decision-making
abilities, which a medical expert testified to at his trial. And, in a memorandum regarding Mr.
Stemberger’s case dated October 28, 2019, the U.S. Department of Justice concluded that he was
“fraudulently deceived by members of a narcotics trafficking network into unwittingly transporting
concealed controlled substances.”

Given these unique circumstances, we are requesting your personal involvement to encourage the
Government of Spain to immediately release Mr. Stemberger on humanitarian grounds so he can return
to his family in the United States. We are especially worried for Mr. Stemberger’s health after learning
that two prisoners held in the same section have recently contracted COVID-19 and ask that the State
Department push for safer facilities to hold Mr. Stemberger while efforts to secure his release are
ongoing.

1
https://www.staradvertiser.com/2020/06/27/breaking-news/76-year-old-virginia-man-jailed-in-spain-was-an-unwitting-
drug-mule-u-s-justice-department-says/
We are confident that you and your team are closely engaged on this case, and we would appreciate the
following updates:

• Have officials of the Department of State met with Mr. Stemberger and his Spanish defense counsel?

• Is there anything that the Embassy in Madrid can do to improve the conditions in which Mr.
Stemberger is being held?

• Have State Department officials communicated at a senior level to appropriate officials of the
Government of Spain that it is the position of the Drug Enforcement Administration and the
Department of Justice that Mr. Stemberger was unaware of the drugs in his luggage and that
sophisticated transnational criminal organization tricked him into becoming an unwitting drug mule?

• Has Ambassador Buchan or officials working at the Embassy in Madrid met with Mr. Stemberger’s
defense counsel and offered support in his pending appeal of his conviction to ensure that the
Spanish courts have documentary evidence of the U.S. Government’s determination that Mr.
Stemberger was unwitting of any illicit activities?

Sadly, Mr. Stemberger is not the only older adult a transnational criminal organization has tricked into
becoming an unwitting drug mule. We understand that there are numerous additional cases of older
Americans falling victim to similar schemes. As such, we have written separately to the Department of
Homeland Security to ask for information about their activities under a program called Operation
COCOON — a joint effort by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and Customs and Border
Protection (CBP) — to target international drug traffickers who manipulate older Americans into
carrying drugs. We are troubled that in an attempt to interdict illicit contraband being moved by
unsuspecting senior citizens, Operation COCOON may have led DHS to provide information about
these unwitting Americans to foreign law enforcement partners who then arrested, prosecuted, and jailed
them abroad. To that end:

• Have State Department officials inquired with their colleagues in the Spanish Government about
how they selected Mr. Stemberger for screening and whether they received advanced notification of
him by any U.S. officials?

• Is the Department aware of Operation COCOON? Has DHS coordinated with the Department on the
protection of these older unwitting Americans to ensure that, once they entered a foreign country,
they were not arrested, prosecuted, and jailed but instead sent safely home to the United States?

Sincerely,

____________________________ ____________________________
Mark R. Warner Tim Kaine
United States Senator United States Senator

2
 September 17, 2020

The Honorable Chad F. Wolf

Under Secretary, Office of Strategy, Policy, and Plans
U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Nebraska Avenue Complex
3801 Nebraska Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20528

Tony H. Pham
Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Director, Immigration and Customs Enforcement
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
500 12th Street, SW
Washington, DC 20536

Mark A. Morgan
Senior Official Performing the Duties of the Commissioner
U.S. Customs and Border Protection
1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20229

Dear Under Secretary Wolf, Mr. Pham, and Mr. Morgan:

We write to express concern about the case of Victor Stemberger and request information on your work
to investigate and combat scams targeting older Americans to become unwitting drug mules. On July 30,
a Spanish court found Mr. Stemberger, our constituent, guilty of drug smuggling and sentenced him to
seven years in prison, rejecting his defense that he was duped into acting as a drug mule for a West
Africa criminal network. Mr. Stemberger, 77, is a Vietnam veteran who served 24 years in the U.S.
Army. To our knowledge, he has never been in trouble with the law. The circumstances of his arrest —
as well as his advanced age — give us pause and concern.

According to news reports, the case began in March 2018 with an email from someone purporting to be
a financial consultant with Nigeria’s foreign ministry and inviting Mr. Stemberger into a business
opportunity that carried the prospect of a lucrative payout. The job allegedly entailed traveling abroad to
deliver gifts and documents to officials, with a goal of recovering funds that were misallocated. In July
2019, he traveled to Brazil on a trip that was to take him to Spain and on to Asia. Sources claim his
contacts told him officials would be visiting his Sao Paolo hotel room to help transfer the gifts into
luggage but that Mr. Stemberger continued to believe the work was legitimate. The following day, Mr.
Stemberger was arrested in Madrid after he was found with cocaine sewn into bubble jackets in a bag.

Mr. Stemberger and his family say he knew nothing about the drugs, and a retired DEA agent Robert
Zachariasiewicz, whose investigative firm has worked with the family on the case, said the 161 pages of
emails he’s reviewed make clear that “he’s completely unwitting.” 1 His family also explains that Mr.
Stemberger suffered a brain aneurysm in 2005 that greatly diminished his logic and decision-making
abilities, which a medical expert testified to at his trial. And, in a memorandum regarding Mr.
Stemberger’s case dated October 28, 2019, the U.S. Department of Justice concluded that he was
“fraudulently deceived by members of a narcotics trafficking network into unwittingly transporting
concealed controlled substances.”

For years, federal officials have warned about scams that target and lure older Americans or those with
diminished mental capacity to become unwitting drug mules. In fact, in February 2016, A. Scott Brown,
former Acting Assistant Director of Investigative Programs for Homeland Security Investigations (HSI),
testified before the Senate Special Committee on Aging about “international drug smuggling scams
targeting seniors.” Mr. Brown noted that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was tracking 144
cases of older adults being duped into acting as unwitting drug mules. He cited statistics of Operation
COCOON (DHS’s program to target narco-traffickers who manipulate older Americans into carrying
drugs): “To date, HSI and CBP have worked with our foreign counterparts to interdict a total of 272
kilograms of methamphetamine, 209 kilograms of cocaine, 4 kilograms of ecstasy, and 11 kilograms of
heroin. They have arrested 15 facilitators affiliated with TCOs — one in Hong Kong, two in China,
three in Argentina and nine in Spain.” 2

We would like to understand what, if anything, your agencies did during Operation COCOON to
prevent these targeted individuals’ arrest and prosecution in a foreign country once they were in transit
as couriers and your efforts to have them returned to the United States. We are concerned that in an
attempt to interdict illicit contraband being moved by unsuspecting senior citizens, Operation COCOON
may have led DHS to provide information about these unwitting Americans to foreign law enforcement
partners who then arrested, prosecuted, and jailed them abroad. As such, we would like to request more
information on Operation COCOON and any other similar ongoing operation to combat criminal
organizations from preying on older adult Americans.

We would appreciate your responses to the following questions about Operation COCOON and other
requested documentation no later than September 28, 2020:

1. Please provide all records and information related to Mr. Stemberger.

2. Please provide the Concept of Operation for Operation COCOON and any related guidance, reports,
metrics, and documentation. Please include any documentation pertaining to the collaborative
arrangement between DHS and foreign law enforcement.
3. Please provide the Concept of Operation for any ongoing operations pertaining to the targeting of
older adult Americans to become unwitting drug mules and any related guidance, reports, metrics,
and documentation.
4. Please explain how you tracked success of the Operation COCOON and any similar ongoing
operation.

1
https://www.staradvertiser.com/2020/06/27/breaking-news/76-year-old-virginia-man-jailed-in-spain-was-an-unwitting-
drug-mule-u-s-justice-department-says/
2
https://www.aging.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/SCA_ICE_Brown_2_10_16.pdf

2
5. As DHS was aware that older adult Americans were being tricked into being unwitting drug mules,
did DHS alert these individuals or their family members or otherwise intervene to stop them from
leaving the United States?
6. Did Operation COCOON identify these “unsuspecting elderly citizens” to foreign law enforcement?
7. Subsequent to identification by U.S. officials, were these Americans then arrested by the foreign law
enforcement to whom they had been identified?
8. Did DHS or any other agency or component of the U.S. federal government communicate to foreign
law enforcement the judgment of the U.S. Government that these American citizens were unaware of
drugs placed in their luggage?
9. Did the information-sharing or collaborative arrangement between DHS and foreign law
enforcement include a commitment by the foreign government to not prosecute unwitting older adult
Americans and, instead, only prosecute members of the transnational criminal organization
facilitating the fraud on the Americans?
10. How many unwitting older American citizens have served time in foreign incarceration as a result of
Operation COCOON? How many are still detained in foreign jails (in addition to Mr. Stemberger)?
How many Americans died while in foreign custody as a result of Operation COCOON?
11. If there were 144 cases in 2016, how many cases is DHS aware of cumulatively throughout the
period of Operation COCOON?
12. If there were nine cases involving Spain in 2016, how many is DHS aware of involving Spain
cumulatively throughout the period of Operation COCOON?
13. Did DHS or any entity involved in Operation COCOON notify Spanish officials of their suspicions
relating to, or knowledge of, Victor Stemberger being an unwitting drug mule prior to his July 5,
2019 arrest? If so, did the notifying entity make clear to the Spanish officials that it was the position
of the U.S. Government that Mr. Stemberger was unaware drugs were planted on him?
14. What steps, if any, has DHS taken to secure Mr. Stemberger’s release from Spanish prison? Is DHS
coordinating with the State Department on the release of Mr. Stemberger or any other senior
American imprisoned via Operation COCOON?

Sincerely,

____________________________ ____________________________
Mark R. Warner Tim Kaine
United States Senator United States Senator

Cc:
Derek N. Benner
Executive Associate Director for Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and Senior Official
Performing the Duties of the Deputy Director