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

About the book

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A New Yorker Best Book of 2025 A Forbes Best True Crime Book of 2025 “Probably the most gripping, memorable, eye-opening book I’ve read in months.” —David Wallace-Wells, The New York Times “Propulsive.” —The Washington Post “Engrossing. . . . Truly shocking.” —The New Republic “The most mind-blowing piece of investigative journalism I’ve read since Chaos.” —Spike Carter, Air Mail 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.

Where the score comes from

The sources average 8.4 across 37 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 17% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Rankings average of 7.8. That is how 7.8 comes out.

Reader voices

The most-liked reviews on Hardcover (credited to their authors).

• “This is a timely book, especially in light of US military action in Venezuela, the Ukraine, Palestine and Iran. US accusations about the drug activities of other countries are absolutely hypocritical in light of the unspeakable damage US military involvement in the global drug trade has done. This is a must read.”

  ★ 4/5mcgaber on Hardcover

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