As a special agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Phillip Kearney (’91) has stood on the front lines of the war on drugs. One of his most successful missions started in 2005 in Afghanistan, when his unit played a key role in taking down Haji Bagcho, whom the United Nations had deemed the most prolific heroin trafficker in the world. Their heroic efforts were featured on CNN’s “Declassified: Untold Stories of American Spies” last fall.
In the mid-2000s, Kearney was assigned to the Bi-Lateral Investigative Unit, a small unit of DEA agents who focused their efforts on apprehending the leaders of drug-trafficking organizations around the world. During the Bagcho investigation, Special Agent Kearney worked in concert with DEA’s special commando-style unit — the Foreign-deployed Advisory Support Team (FAST) — and U.S. soldiers serving in Afghanistan.
For four years, Kearney investigated Bagcho, ultimately discovering that he was paying the Taliban to protect his opium labs and that terrorists were using this money to organize and fund attacks. The DEA raided Bagcho’s offices and gathered evidence needed to prosecute him in U.S. courts. Bagcho was eventually apprehended in Pakistan and extradited to the U.S., prosecuted, given two life sentences, and placed at a federal “supermax” prison in Colorado.
In the CNN piece, Kearney called Bagcho “the godfather.”
“He was really the man in the shadows that was in charge,” he said.
According to Kearney, seeing the case dramatized on national television was important.
“I was excited that the case and those who contributed would be recognized,” he said. “It was truly a large team of great people who made this investigation successful.”
While law enforcement has become a rewarding career for Kearney, when he first stepped on Liberty’s campus, he wasn’t sure what field he wanted to pursue. But as a member of the Flames Football team, Kearney had the opportunity to do ministry at local jails, offering spiritual support to inmates.
“Seeing those men (the inmates) and beginning to understand their plight was truly the beginning for me in the criminal justice field, even if I didn’t see it then,” Kearney said.
After graduating with a degree in judicial administration, Kearney immediately began working in law enforcement. He served in local courthouses and jails at first and then at the Florida State Prison. He was also a police officer in Utah and a diplomat in the U.S. Embassy in Canada. Kearney has spent 18 years with the DEA, living all over the U.S. and working in 16 different countries. He currently supervises the DEA Task Force in Portland, Ore.
Kearney said he still applies the life lessons he learned at Liberty.
“The real advantage I found at Liberty was the lessons from professors and coaches on keeping my focus in the midst of trying times, handling adversity, and remembering why what I was doing was important.”
One of his favorite memories from Liberty was during the 1988 football game against James Madison University, where he said he shared the Gospel with a JMU running back, who then accepted Christ.
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