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.

Authors obvious bias makes it hard to listen to

Well narrated. Unfortunately by Chapter 10, it’s become clear this author either couldn’t become an operator or was snubbed by them. As others have stated this could have been a good glimpse into the way that covert ops could lead to little accountability or the way these humans have to adapt and reprogram to function. Instead it was overshadowed by political, gender and race bias. It became difficult to listen to. Keeping on topic seemed difficult because the derogatory stories took priority.
This had potential but far missed the mark.

Incredible, insane

Seth really paints a picture of the intertwining stories, rarely embellishing the inherent rot at their center.

Wow

Incredibly well researched and powerfully written. A truly eye-opening indictment of the American special forces and the modern myth of The Operator.

wildly informative & entertaining

i loved the compelling character-driven writing style. i have heard bits and pieces of this story for years, but to have all the details laid out so concisely made it my favorite book this year.

Better than any Tarantino movie.

This book contains a lot of information. I’m grateful for this book. I hope we can start to heal now.