The Fort Bragg Cartel

Drug Trafficking and Murder in the Special Forces

By: Seth Harp

Narrated by: Dan John Miller

INSTANT 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 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.

Jaw dropping

I have to leave a fifteen word reply because audible won’t just accept a simple review,

Only on chapter 3 & can see Authors’s Biases

Thought I would be hearing a true story… However, I’m left wondering how much is true & how much is the author’s bias towards the Military and Republicans.
The Author conveniently side steps Clinton’s mishandling Mogadishu (Black Hawk Down) - blaming it on Delta Force. The Author also completely ignores how Clinton missed his chance to take out Osama bin Laden.

This might be the first book I request a refund for since I don’t know what’s true and what’s the author’s opinion/ bias.

The Bushes were not great presidents nor was Clinton. Wish the Author could set aside his bias, cause now I question everything he has to say.

Rot at the Tip of the Spear

Brave and vital reporting about the rampant criminality and corruption in the elite ranks of the armed forces. An examination of depravity and murders behind the scenes of the GWOT.

Non-fiction Steven King Novel

This book is amazing it could be adapted into either an increíble successor to The Wire or a modern day Blazing Saddles which is not something I’ve ever thought before. Tell everyone you know to read this book

shocking, informative, and all around well done

this books is incredible, I heard the author on a live show of trueanon and the short parts of the book he shared and they talked about had me needing to know more and it did not disappoint. I look forward to more from Seth.