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"Snatched" and the Story of Operation Princess

Snatched: From Drug Queen to Informer to Hostage--A Harrowing True Story

I have always been fascinated by the story of the Princess and the DEA. My computer is filled with thousands of pages I downloaded from PACER in her civil lawsuit against the DEA in the Federal Court of Claims: Case No. 97-cv-00579-MCW. In this overly long post about the DEA and money laundering stings, at the very end I wrote:

I hope the Princess gets $10 million or more from the Government for what the DEA did in her case. Her expert witness, former DEA Agent Michael Levine, filed an 861 page report (97-cv-00579-MCW, Document 196, Filed 05/31/11). I''m surprised there hasn't been a made for TV movie of the case yet. It's filled with tales of informant and agent-induced money laundering schemes,cops picking up money and sending it around the world, kidnappings, agents breaking rules and even stealing the traffickers' money, and corrupt foreign officials.

Now there's a book out about her case. It's called Snatched: How the DEA Got a Cartel Queen to Flip by Bruce Porter, the author of "Blow," which became a hit movie. The Daily Beast published an excerpt this week. The Daily News recaps the story here, along with photos of the Princess and some others. [More...]

There were a few articles about her back in the day, and a few more about her lawsuit against the DEA. She filed the suit in 1997 and it was just completed in 2015. There were two trials, one on liability, which she won, and then one on damages, that concluded with the judge awarding her (in my view) a paltry $1 million. The amount represented her expected future medical costs.

I don't know how accurate the book is. I've read a few chapters on