The Department of Justice (DOJ) has ordered the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to conduct investigations at airports and other locations after a Justice Department oversight report found there were “concerns” about how DEA agents conducted investigations. ordered the search for passengers to be halted at the location.
in press release On Thursday, Michael E. Horowitz of the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Inspector General (OIG) said the OIG had found instances in which DEA agents “failed to follow their own policies regarding group consensual encounters.” I made it. Transportation. ”
Horowitz's press release stated that the DEA did not follow its policies regarding consensual contact with passengers, resulting in “potentially significant operational and legal risks for DEA and DEA Task Force Group personnel.” “It was.''
Examples of how the DEA was “creating potentially significant operational and legal risks” include the DEA's failure to document “each consensual encounter” and the training required for the DEA. The DEA Task Force Group's employees were suspended starting in 2023.
“DEA has suspended and has not resumed transportation interdiction training as required by DEA policy in 2023,” the press release said. “As a result, despite DEA's prior representations to the OIG in connection with the 2015 OIG Report Recommendation Resolution, DEA does not require all DEA Task Force Group personnel conducting transportation interdiction operations. Doing so creates a significant risk that DEA task force group personnel will conduct interdiction operations inappropriately.”
The press release cited an incident in which the DEA task force “selected” travelers for consensual encounters “based on information provided by a confidential DEA source who was an employee of a commercial airline.” are. The employee was reportedly paid “a portion of the cash seized by the DEA office from passengers” for seizures made at the airport as a result of information provided “by the employee.”
Despite the traveler's “refusal to consent,” the traveler's carry-on bag was eventually detained, resulting in a “law enforcement drug-sniffing dog” flagging “at the bag.” The search ended with no drugs, money or “other contraband” found.
The administrator alert released today also describes an incident earlier this year involving a traveler who was approached by a DEA special agent for a consensual encounter while on a flight. During this incident, DEA special agents detained the traveler's carry-on bag after the traveler refused consent. A police drug-sniffing dog then alerted the bag, the DEA said. In the end, the passenger signed a consent form. No cash, drugs or other contraband was found. By that time, the travelers had missed their original flight. The traveler videotaped the encounter with a personal recording device, and an edited version of the video and audio has been released. None of the members of the DEA task force group were wearing body-worn cameras, which are not required by the DEA or DEA policy.
The OIG further stated that based on information provided by a DEA confidential source who was an employee of a commercial airline about a traveler who purchased a ticket within 48 hours of travel, a DEA task force group revealed that he had chosen this as the encounter target. OIG learned that DEA paid the employee a portion of the cash that the DEA office seized from passengers at local airports when the seizure occurred based on information the employee provided to DEA. The employee had received tens of thousands of dollars from the Drug Enforcement Administration over the past several years.
O.I.G. report The department said it had “long-standing concerns and received complaints over the years about the potential for racial profiling related to cold consent encounters on transit.” “From 2000 to 2003,” he added, in response to concerns about the possibility of The DEA has begun collecting “consensual encounter data on all encounters on specific public transportation systems.”
“In 2003, the DEA ended its data collection activities,” the report added. “However, consensual encounter operations continued.”
On November 12, 2024, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco issued a letter to the DEA that said, “All public transportation, except in connection with an ongoing predicate investigation involving one or more identified targets or criminal networks. order to stop “consensual encounters”. or DEA administrators said in a press release that the search was approved.
