Mr. David B. Caunter began his law enforcement career in 1994 as a Police Officer with the Baltimore City Police Department. During his tenure with the Baltimore Police Department, Mr. Caunter held various assignments including tactical operations and the rank of Detective in the Crimes against Persons Section. Mr. Caunter joined the DEA in 1998 and upon completion of the DEA Special Agent Training Academy he was assigned to Chicago, Illinois. In 2003, Mr. Caunter was selected for an overseas Special Agent assignment in Istanbul, Turkey. While assigned to DEA Istanbul, Mr. Caunter worked extensively in Pakistan, Afghanistan and the UAE. In 2006, Mr. Caunter transferred to Cleveland, Ohio to serve as Acting Supervisor for Northeast Ohio. In January 2009, Mr. Caunter was promoted to Supervisory Special Agent in Richmond, Virginia where he supervised a DEA federal task force comprised of a mixture of federal, state and local law enforcement personnel. In July 2013, Mr. Caunter transferred to Vienna, Austria to head the DEA Vienna Country Office. In addition to carrying out bi-lateral counter-drug operations with Austrian authorities, DEA Vienna was responsible for the Czech Republic, Croatia, Moldova, Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia. While stationed in Vienna, Mr. Caunter was also accredited to several international organizations including the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. From January 2018 to October 2018, Mr. Caunter was temporarily promoted to Acting Assistant Regional Director for DEA Europe. In that role, Mr. Caunter supervised seven stand-alone DEA Country Offices including Warsaw, Sofia, Bucharest, Athens, Zagreb, Rome and Vienna with an area of responsibility including 23 countries. In July 2019, Mr. Caunter transferred to DEA Headquarters, Office of Foreign Operations and promoted to Section Chief of the Europe and Middle East Section. In this capacity, Mr. Caunter and his team provided operational support to 25 DEA Country Offices covering over 79 countries across Europe, the Middle East and South Asia. In September 2021, Mr. Caunter transferred to INTERPOL Headquarters in Lyon, France as the first seconded DEA official in over 20 years. Mr. Caunter currently leads the Drugs Unit and along with his team provides counter-drug support to INTERPOL’s 195 member countries.

Mr. Caunter received his BA in Psychology from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio and has completed graduate work at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Mr. Caunter is recognized by the DEA and the legal community as a subject matter expert on Tactical Operations, Balkan Organized Crime and SW Asian Heroin. Throughout his law enforcement career, Mr. Caunter lectured at the DoD Marshall Center for European Security Studies, the United Nations in Vienna, Case Western Reserve University Law School and the University of Richmond. Mr. Caunter is an internationally certified firearms, tactical and defensive tactics instructor. Mr. Caunter speaks German and Turkish.