BOKISSONTHRONE: DEA agents attended drug cartel sex parties in Colombia, Justice Dept. probe claims

Friday, March 27, 2015

DEA agents attended drug cartel sex parties in Colombia, Justice Dept. probe claims

Drug Enforcement Administration agents partook in wild sex parties with hookers hired by Colombian drug cartels, a bombshell report released Thursday by the Justice Department claims.

The report, published by the department’s Office of the Inspector General, reveals a culture of widespread and extreme sexual misconduct across several federal agencies as well as persistent resistance to the investigations created to unearth it. Several U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents attended sex parties staffed with prostitutes in Colombia and paid for by drug cartels, a new report claims.

Several U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents attended sex parties staffed with prostitutes in Colombia and paid for by drug cartels, a new report claims.

A Drug Enforcement Administration agent is seen in a simulated raid. According the report, the DEA, and other agencies, did not cooperate with the Justice Department probe.

Among the most shocking of the report’s dozens of allegations is the incidence of “‘sex parties’ with prostitutes funded by the local drug cartels for DEA agents at their government-leased quarters, over a period of several years.”

“Although some of the DEA agents participating in these parties denied it, the information in the case file suggested they should have known the prostitutes in attendance were paid with cartel funds,” investigators wrote of the parties. “The foreign officers further alleged that in addition to soliciting prostitutes, three DEA SSAs (special agents) in particular were provided money, expensive gifts, and weapons from drug cartel members.”

During the parties, which reportedly occurred between 2005 and 2008, agents allegedly paid Colombian police officers to provide security and “protection for the DEA agents’ weapons and property,” the report claimed.

A prostitute poses during an interview in Cartagena in 2012. The Justice Department report unearthed many incidents where government agencies did not properly report incidents of sexual misconduct, many of which happened in the company of prostitutes.

That protection, however, didn’t alleviate serious “security risks” posed by the romps, where, according to the report, hookers were constantly around sensitive government computers and devices, including “agents' laptops, BlackBerry devices, and other government-issued equipment.”

The situation “created potential security risks for the DEA and for the agents who participated in the parties, potentially exposing them to extortion, blackmail, or coercion," the report said.

Colombia is also the location where several Secret Service personnel were caught in a separate prostitution scandal in April 2012.

The report, part of a larger investigation of how the Justice Department's various law-enforcement agencies respond to sexual harassment and misconduct allegations, didn’t name any of the agents involved, but claimed that 10 of them had admitted to attending the bashes and had been punished with modest suspensions ranging from two to 10 days.

The incidents at the DEA, which has been led by Michele Leonhart since 2007, were never properly reported; the agency’s Office of Professional Responsibility only learned that they had happened after an anonymous tip was submitted in 2010.

The review also unearthed several additional incidents of sexual misconduct across many other agencies — such as the FBI, the Marshals Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) — including more rendezvous with prostitutes in other countries, at least one physical assault of a hooker over a payment disagreement and several incidents of disturbing sexual harassment.