A new report released by the Justice Department today has found that “agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration reportedly had ‘sex parties’ with prostitutes hired by drug cartels in Colombia.”
And it gets worse. The Colombian police provided “protection for the DEA agents’ weapons and property during the parties,” the report says.
Was anyone punished for this behavior? Not really. Ten DEA agents admitted to participating in the parties, and some agents received between two and ten days suspension. Oh. Well then.
The stunning allegations are part of an investigation by the Justice Department’s inspector general into claims of sexual harassment and misconduct within DEA, FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and the U.S. Marshals Service. The IG’s office found that DEA did not fully comply with its probe.
Moreover,the report states that DEA, ATF and the Marshals Service repeatedly failed to report all risky or improper sexual behavior to security personnel at those agencies.
“The foreign officer allegedly arranged ‘sex parties’ with prostitutes funded by the local drug cartels for these DEA agents at their government-leased quarters, over a period of several years,” the IG report says.
The DEA Office of Professional Responsibility became aware for the allegations in 2010, but the bad behavior dates back to 2005. But some supervisors were aware of a “problem” when the building management for the DEA Building in Bogota complained.
“Although some of the DEA agents participating in these parties denied it, the information in the case file suggested they should have known the prostitutes in attendance were paid with cartel funds. A foreign officer also alleged providing protection for the DEA agents’ weapons and property during the parties,” the report said. “The foreign officers further alleged that in addition to soliciting prostitutes, three DEA SSAs [special agents] in particular were provided money, expensive gifts, and weapons from drug cartel members.”
Naturally, the DEA was not cooperative with the Inspector General’s Office.
“We were also concerned by an apparent decision by DEA to withhold information regarding a particular open misconduct case,” the report states. “The OIG {Office of Inspector General] was not given access to this case file information until several months after our request, and only after the misconduct case was closed. Once we became aware of the information, we interviewed DEA employees who said that they were given the impression that they were not to discuss this case with the OIG while the case remained open.”
The report adds: “Therefore, we cannot be completely confident that the FBI and DEA provided us with all information relevant to this review. As a result, our report reflects the findings and conclusions we reached based on the information made available to us.”
Your tax dollars at work, ladies and gentlemen.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member