Head of the DEA hired by Motorola

WASHINGTON -- Drug Enforcement Administration chief Karen Tandy said Monday she is resigning, ending her four-year tenure as the first woman to hold that post.

Tandy told employees she was leaving to take a job as a senior vice president of Motorola, DEA spokesman Garrison Courtney said. Motorola is a leading sponsor of a DEA traveling museum exhibit about global drug trafficking and terrorism that Courtney said is funded solely by private donors and corporations -- not by taxpayers.

"It just doesn't get any better than this," Tandy said in a statement about her time at DEA.

She praised the agency's 11,000 employees, saying they sacrifice "everything to live our dangerous mission 24-7, every day of the year, in order to protect America's children and communities."

Tandy, a former associate deputy attorney general at the Justice Department, will serve as Motorola's top spokesperson for public policy, focusing mostly on global telecom policy, trade and regulation.

She is "an ideal and logical fit to lead our government and policy team," said Motorola spokesman Gene Delaney.

Tandy was confirmed to head the DEA in July 2003. She is the first woman to serve as DEA administrator. The DEA's second-in command is also a woman: Michele Leonhart, who is a possible successor to Tandy.

The DEA employs about 4,600 agents in the U.S. and in 85 countries.

During her four years at DEA, Tandy began its program to curb opium and heroin traffic by deploying agents to Afghanistan to track down local drug barons accused of financing Taliban insurgency. The DEA has said its annual multimillion program has helped bring a more than 700 percent increase in the seizure of opium, heroin and clandestine labs.

But a recent United Nations report forecast that Afghanistan would produce 9,000 tons of opium this year -- about 93 percent of global supply. That is up 34 percent from 2006, and is enough to make more than 880 tons of heroin.

Under Tandy, the DEA said it eliminated more than 65 percent of the nation's illicit methamphetamine labs. In a statement, the DEA said it has stripped drug lords of more than $3 billion assets this year -- outpacing the agency's own $2.4 billion budget.