NCJ Number
172361
Journal
UTNE Reader Dated: (May-June 1996) Pages: 87-95
Date Published
1996
Length
9 pages
Annotation
This article presents an example of how an informant worked in cooperation with drug enforcement agents to obtain pay and leniency in his own legal difficulties by entrapping an unsuspecting citizen in a drug-dealing scenario.
Abstract
In the example provided, an informant negotiates with DEA agents to provide them with a Class One drug dealer (head of a criminal organization that deals with tens of millions of dollars in drugs each month). The informant targets an unsuspecting parking lot attendant who barely speaks English and works 60 hours a week at minimum wage. He promises the "target" that a "dumb" mafia member will give him hundreds of thousands of dollars for promising to deliver him drugs, and the parking attendant can just walk off with the money. The mafia member is in fact a DEA agent. The DEA agents involved in the case did not check the informant's story nor pick up on any of the clues that the informant has set-up the "target" for his own purposes. DEA ended up giving the informant $30,000 for his cooperation. The DEA agents were enthralled with the chance to have a Class One conviction, which would advance their careers and pad DEA statistics. This led them to ignore the obvious flaws in the case. The author advises that the self-interest of drug enforcement agents and criminal informers work together to target innocent citizens and low-level drug dealers to produce injustice for their "targets" and waste taxpayers' money.