The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces by Seth Harp

The Fort Bragg Cartel: Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces

by Seth Harp

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Crime & Justice

It starts with two bodies near Fort Bragg in December 2020, a Delta Force master sergeant and a warrant officer who smuggled weapons and drugs. Harp's case is that two decades of special-operations war and drug exposure bred addiction, trafficking and violence, and that commanders and law enforcement kept shielding soldiers from accountability.

Core ideas
  • An earlier killing: Billy Lavigne, who dealt drugs on base, had shot fellow soldier Mark Leshikar, and police and the military accepted self-defense.
  • Heroin came home: Harp ties Afghan opium to warlords and the US-backed Kabul government, and argues the exposure followed troops home.
  • Contested reach: A RUSI analyst questions its credibility, and a Small Wars Journal reviewer faults applying base-wide data to JSOC. How much describes the elite units?
Published2025
Pages357
ISBN9780593655085
ReadNov 2025

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