The Fort Bragg Cartel - by Seth Harp (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

"The Fort Bragg Cartel opens like a nonfiction thriller and never lets up. A page-turning investigation into the dark side of our forever wars."
--Steve Coll, Pulitzer-Prize winning author of Ghost Wars and Directorate S

A groundbreaking investigation into a string of unsolved murders at America's premier special operations base, and what the crimes reveal about drug trafficking and impunity among elite soldiers in today's military

In December 2020, a deer hunter discovered two dead bodies that had been riddled with bullets and dumped in a forested corner of Fort Bragg, North Carolina. One of the dead men, Master Sergeant William "Billy" Lavigne, was a member of Delta Force, the most secretive "black ops" unit in the military. A deeply traumatized veteran of America's classified assassination program, Lavigne had done more than a dozen deployments in his lengthy career, was addicted to crack cocaine, dealt drugs on base, and had committed a series of violent crimes before he was mysteriously killed. The other victim, Chief Warrant Officer Timothy Dumas, was a quartermaster attached to the Special Forces who used his proximity to clandestine missions to steal guns and traffic drugs into the United States from abroad, and had written a blackmail letter threatening to expose criminality in the special operations task force in Afghanistan.

As soon as Seth Harp, an Iraq war veteran and investigative reporter, begins looking into the double murder, he learns that there have been many more unexplained deaths at Fort Bragg recently, other murders connected to drug trafficking in elite units, and dozens of fatal overdoses. Drawing on declassified documents, trial transcripts, police records, and hundreds of interviews, Harp tells a scathing story of narco-trafficking in the Special Forces, drug conspiracies abetted by corrupt police, blatant military cover-ups, American complicity in the Afghan heroin trade, and the pernicious consequences of continuous war.

Review Quotes

Advance Praise for The Fort Bragg Cartel

"The Fort Bragg Cartel opens like a nonfiction thriller and never lets up. A page-turning investigation into the dark side of our forever wars."
--Steve Coll, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Ghost Wars and Directorate S

"A searing and absolutely essential exposé about the toll that decades of war has taken on our soldiers, our military, and our government. Harp has produced a stunning, masterful work of reporting that every American should read. Riveting and unforgettable."
--Christopher Leonard, New York Times bestselling author of Kochland and The Lords of Easy Money

"By turns informative, explosive, and provocative, The Fort Bragg Cartel reveals in gritty detail how drugs have corrupted the U.S. Army's most elite units from the inside out."
--Sean Naylor, New York Times bestselling author of Relentless Strike: The Secret History of Joint Special Operations Command

"A deeply reported, terrifyingly vivid plunge into the drug-fueled underbelly of life in the U.S. military's elite special forces. The psychic cost of killing in the name of America haunts every page. This is an anti-war book for our time."
--Jeff Goodell, New York Times bestselling author of The Heat Will Kill You First: Life and Death on a Scorched Planet

"With The Fort Bragg Cartel, Seth Harp offers a chilling glimpse inside the rotten core of American empire. This book lays bare the secretive cult of U.S. special forces and follows a trail of murder, drug-smuggling, and corruption, from the mountains of Afghanistan to the pine forests of North Carolina. The Fort Bragg Cartel is at once a meticulous investigation of rampant criminality and impunity within Delta Force, a tragic study of young people chewed up and spat out, and a dire warning of the devastation wrought at home and abroad by forever war."
--Noah Hurowitz, author of El Chapo: The Untold Story of the World's Most Infamous Drug Lord

"A fantastic book, the best I have seen on the global war on terrorism and the wreckage it left behind. The depth of Harp's reporting is awesome."
--Andrew Cockburn, author of The Spoils of War: Profit, Power, and the American War Machine

"A page-turning true crime story that tracks the downward spiral of drug-addled lunatics trained by an immoral government to kill innocent people for political reasons. The implications of this book are more important than ever as the U.S. moves towards fascism in the age of Trump."
--Christopher Ketcham, author of This Land: How Cowboys, Capitalism, and Corruption are Ruining the American West

"A blistering exposé of criminality within the U.S. Army's Special Forces. . . . Harp's investigative rigor and visceral storytelling make this a disturbing must-read for anyone seeking to understand the full cost of America's overseas conflicts."
--Publishers Weekly

About the Author

Seth Harp is an investigative reporter and foreign correspondent. A contributing editor at Rolling Stone, he has reported from countries including Iraq, Syria, Mexico, and Ukraine for Harper's Magazine, The New Yorker, The New York Times, Columbia Journalism Review, The Intercept, The Daily Beast, and The Texas Observer. His work has been supported by residencies at MacDowell and Yaddo, and he is a 2025 ASU Future Security Fellow at New America. Before becoming a journalist, Harp practiced law for five years, and was an Assistant Attorney General for the state of Texas. During college and law school, he served in the United States Army Reserve and did one tour of duty in Iraq.