Indianorigin lawyer named acting head of DEA by Trump admin

WASHINGTON: Uttam Dhillon, an Indian-origin lawyer serving in the White House, has been named the acting administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), which combats the smuggling and use of narcotics in the US.

Dhillon has already started working on his new assignment.

“With one American dying of a drug overdose every nine minutes, there can be no doubt that we are facing the deadliest drug epidemic in our history,” attorney general Jeff Sessions said on Monday. “The work of the Drug Enforcement Administration is critical to fighting this crisis, and President (Donald) Trump and I are committed to continuing to give it the strong leadership it deserves. That is why I am pleased to appoint Uttam Dhillon as acting administrator.”

As deputy counsel and deputy assistant to Trump, Dhillon had been a part of the discussions that led to the firing of FBI director James Comey in May 2017.

Dhillon has had a long career battling drug traffickers and violent crime, according to the justice department. In 2006, he became the first director of counter-narcotics enforcement at the Department of Homeland Security. Prior to that, he served as an associate deputy attorney general in the justice department, in which role he headed the attorney general’s anti-gang coordination committee and led efforts to formulate policies and programmes to combat gangs.