Futuro Investigates: DEA Trained Agents Work in Latin America and Conspire with the Cartels
This article features Government Accountability Project Legal Director, Tom Devine, and was originally published here.
For decades, the DEA has supported special units abroad, whose agents are local police officers vetted and trained by the U.S. Now, former agents and members of those units —some of them currently facing criminal accusations— reveal that the drug cartels bribed them while they had access to sensitive information from the U.S. government.
Keith McNichols is haunted by investigations that have gone nowhere. As a former agent of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), he launched them. Once he came forward as a whistleblower, he was targeted.
He believes the worst day of his life was when his daughter was diagnosed with cancer. The second was when he reported misconduct and corruption from his former DEA coworkers to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ).
“The funding for drug enforcement was basically a slush fund for corruption in the DEA,” said Tom Devine, McNichols’ attorney. “When a whistleblower threatens the organization, it leads to pretty almost standardized tactics of retaliation.”
Devine is the legal director of the Government Accountability Project (GAP), a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C., dedicated to empowering whistleblowers.
Like McNichols, other former agents have declared that they witnessed DEA officers and local agents in Latin America...
Park Filed Complaint Against President Lee Ahead of 2021 Election Jang Youngha Sentenced to One Year in Prison, Two Years Probation Confirmed The police have launched an investigation into Park Chu...