Feds Gone Wild! …Yes, I mean sex parties and whatnot.

See if you can detect the common thread of this Department of Justice report:

  • ATF: “In November 2009, an ATF Director of Industry Operations (DIO) who holds a Top Secret security clearance was on temporary assignment. According to the IAD report of investigation, the DIO solicited consensual sex with anonymous partners and modified a hotel room door to facilitate sexual play. In addition, the DIO removed smoke detectors from the hotel room and inadvertently caused damage to the hotel’s centralized fire detection system. When the hotel supervisor contacted the local police, the DIO admitted the conduct and told local police this type of conduct was not an isolated incident for him and had occurred in the past. The DIO pled guilty to one count of misdemeanor “fire prevention interference.””
  • DEA: “We found that a Regional Director, an Acting Assistant Regional Director (AARD), and a Group Supervisor failed to report through their chain of command or to the DEA OPR repeated allegations of DEA Special Agents (SA) patronizing prostitutes and frequenting a brothel while in an overseas posting, treating these allegations as local management issues. It was also alleged that one of the subjects in the supervisors’ group assaulted a prostitute following a payment dispute.”
  • DEA: “During a series of interviews the DEA OPR conducted from 2009 through 2010, former host-country police officers alleged that several DEA agents, consisting of an Assistant Regional Director (ARD), an Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAC), six Supervisory Special Agents (SSA), and two line Special Agents formerly assigned to the an overseas office, solicited prostitutes and engaged in other serious misconduct while in the country…. 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. …Ultimately, 7 of the 10 agents admitted attending parties with prostitutes while they were stationed. The DEA imposed penalties ranging from a 2-day suspension to a 10-day suspension. One of the line agents was cleared of all wrongdoing.”
  • USMS: “A USMS supervisor failed to promptly report allegations that a Deputy U.S. Marshal (DUSM) solicited prostitutes while on an extradition mission in Bangkok, Thailand. According to the case file, the supervisor learned about the allegations when the DUSM’s colleague reported the matter to management. At that time, the supervisor met with the DUSM; the DUSM admitted the misconduct and received an oral admonishment.”

Continue reading Feds Gone Wild! …Yes, I mean sex parties and whatnot.

The DEA’s Snitch Protection program.

All honor to Hot Air and everything, but this Reuters article is perhaps a little overselling:

(Reuters) – A secretive U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration unit is funneling information from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records to authorities across the nation to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans. Continue reading The DEA’s Snitch Protection program.

Drug-related/vigilante/(both) violence escalates in Mexico.

Well, I suppose that this was inevitable.

A self-styled drug-trafficking group calling itself the “Zeta Killers” claimed responsibility this week for the recent murders of at least 35 people believed to belong to the Zetas, Mexico’s most violent criminal organization.

The claim by the “Mata Zetas” has stoked fears that Mexico, like Colombia a generation before, may be witnessing the rise of paramilitary drug gangs that seek society’s approval and tacit consent from the government to help society confront its ills, in this case, the Zetas.

(Via AoSHQ Headlines) Before you start cheering, the WSJ article goes on to note that these guys (they call themselves Los Mata Zetas, or “Zeta Killers”) are probably not so much ‘annoyed Mexican citizens taking the law into their own hands’ as they are ‘rival drug gang members using vigilantism as a cover’ – although I suppose that you could be a violent drug gang member and still find the Zetas appalling.  Which they are.  It’s just that it’s an open question whether these people are any better: while the WSJ did report that the group assassinated 35 people, the AP notes that that total “included 12 women and two minors.”  While killing hangers-on of a drug gang may be an effective terrorist tactic, it is nonetheless still a terrorist tactic.  And it’s a tactic that suggests that angels – even the Old Testament (read: scary) ones – are thin on the ground in Mexico right now. Continue reading Drug-related/vigilante/(both) violence escalates in Mexico.

#rsrh Dog Fails to Bite Man: DEA avoids shooting elderly couple.

Reason (and Instapundit) is as shocked as I am: apparently, in the course of fighting the War on Some Drugs, the DEA did a “massive drug raid” in Roswell, New Mexico last week.  In the course of said raid, they got a tip that a suspect was at a particular location, so they… Continue reading #rsrh Dog Fails to Bite Man: DEA avoids shooting elderly couple.

DEA now linked to Operation Fast & Furious.

On the record, like.

It would appear that the DEA does not want to be the fall guy in Operation Fast & Furious*, either:  DEA head Michele M. Leonhart admitted in a letter to Senator Grassley (Judiciary) and Rep. Issa (Oversight) that her organization was in fact involved in the investigation, and provided support for it.  This is a significant admission by Ms. Leonhart, given that (as Bob Owens** of Pajamas Media reminds us) there is an existing allegation by the former head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, & Explosives (BATFE) Phoenix office that the DEA was a full partner in the proceedings. Continue reading DEA now linked to Operation Fast & Furious.