DEA Agents Reminded Not to Attend Sex Parties Paid for By Drug Cartels
LatestHey, this is fun: agents for the Drug Enforcement Administration based in Colombia have been attending sex parties with local sex workers since at least 2001, parties that are paid for in part by local drug cartels. Nobody’s getting fired. Why would anybody get fired?
As the New York Times reports, Attorney General Eric Holder issued a memo — an official memo ! — on Friday firmly reminding all Justice Department employees not to pay for sex, even in countries where that is legal. That rule, he wrote, is sort of an important one “not simply because it invites extortion, blackmail, and leaks of sensitive or classified information, but also because it undermines the Department’s efforts to eradicate the scourge of human trafficking.”
The memo was spurred by two things: a report released in March from the Justice Department’s Inspector General outlining the frequency (a lot) and seriousness (very) of the “sexual misconduct” of DEA agents in Colombia. Like, say, how DEA supervisors in Colombia knew sex parties were happening at the DEA’s government-paid-for living quarters, yet didn’t report it to the agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR). From the report:
According to DEA OPR’s report of investigation, the agents’ incountry supervisors were aware of several loud parties with prostitutes that occurred at a Special Agent’s government-leased quarters, because the Special Agent had received four complaint letters from building management, who had also informed local DEA management about the complaints between August 2005 and December 2008. In subsequent interviews with DEA OPR, this SA said that a Group Supervisor, the Regional Director, and the Acting Assistant Regional Director had warned the SA to discontinue the parties or be removed from the overseas assignment. However, they did not inform DEA OPR about the allegations.
Furthermore, the DEA’s whole, you know, purpose for existing — enforcing drug laws and preventing illegal drugs from entering the United States — is rather undermined by who they were partyin’ with: