Snitching

Criminal Informant Law, Policy, and Research

Drug-related

Ex-traffickers rewarded for “El Chapo” indictment

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In a dynamic reminiscent of the FBI’s use of mafia informants, two major drug traffickers were given drastically reduced sentences in exchange for their cooperation against the Mexican Sinaloa cartel.  The two men reportedly smuggled $1.8 billion worth of drugs into Mexico and were facing life sentences; they have been cooperating with the U.S. government for six years.  From the Huffington Post:

“[A] federal prosecutor [] poured praise on Pedro and Margarito Flores, portraying them as among the most valuable traffickers-turned-informants in U.S. history and describing the courage they displayed in gathering evidence against Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman and other leaders in Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel. With credit for time served awaiting sentencing and for good behavior in prison, the brothers, now 33, could be out in as little as six years.”

Denver Post examines costs and benefits of informant use

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The Denver Post ran this three-part in depth series on informant use: How police reliance on confidential informants in Colorado carries risk, Some want harsher laws for confidential informants in Colorado, and Colorado gang slaying by ATF informant shows perils of informant use.

The series documents a large number of convictions obtained through informant use, including important evidence against violent gangs.  It also reveals wrongful convictions, an ACLU lawsuit, tens of thousands of dollars paid to informants, and the continuing violent crimes committed by some informants while they were working for the federal government.

Attention is turning to student informants

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20/20 did this special feature on “Logan,” the U. Mass student who died of a heroin overdose after becoming a drug informant for campus police: The Dangers of a College Student Becoming a Campus Police Drug Informant.  U. Mass canceled its informant program after a university working group issued this critical report.

Reason just posted this story about Andrew Sadek, a 20-year-old student at North Dakota State College of Science in Wahpeton, who was shot and killed after he agreed to work as an informant:  Busted Over $80 Worth of Pot, College Student Turns Informant, Then Turns Up Dead.

Florida might step up again as a leader in this arena.  Legislators have introduced bills that would ban the use of minors and college students as informants in buy-and-bust drug operations.

“Outrageous government conduct” in stash-house stings

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A federal judge has dismissed a conspiracy indictment against a defendant accused of participating in a drug robbery in which the ATF, working with a confidential informant, set up an elaborate and imaginary stash-house robbery sting.  Courts have traditionally been slow to invoke the “outrageous government conduct” doctrine, which protects defendants against government operations that are “grossly shocking” and that “violate the universal sense of justice.”  But these increasingly common stash-house stings have brought the issue to the fore.  See L.A. Times story here.

In this case, the Court distinguished between permissible government efforts to infiltrate criminal organizations, and “manufacturing crime” in order to generate convictions.   From the opinion:

“The Court finds that the Government’s extensive involvement in dreaming up this fanciful scheme—including the arbitrary amount of drugs and illusory need for weapons and extra associates—transcends the bounds of due process and renders the Government’s actions outrageous.”

In particular, the Court objected to the fact that the ATF  knew nothing about the defendant Antuan Dunlap until he was brought into the scheme five days before the alleged robbery.

“Allowing after-the-fact knowledge . . . in a situation like this creates a perverse incentive for the Government. It encourages the government to cast a wide net, trawling for crooks in seedy, poverty-ridden areas—all without an iota of suspicion that a particular person has committed similar conduct in the past.”

While this case hinged on the fact that the government manufactured the robbery sting from whole cloth (the Court noted dryly that the total amount of drugs taken off the streets in such stings is “zero”), like many such cases the sting depended on a criminal informant who brought the defendants  to the government in the first place, and kept the operation going.  This model–of an undercover agent and/or an informant cooking up nonexistent crimes–may be coming in for new scrutiny.

HuffPost on DEA snitching debacles

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In a two-part series about “the sketchiest things the DEA has done while waging the war on drugs,” informant debacles take the lead in this Huffington Post article.  Here are a few of the headlines:

-The DEA once turned a teenager into a drug kingpin so he could act as an informant.

-The DEA allows informants to break the law, but have no records as to how often it happens.

-One of America’s most notorious terrorists once served as a DEA informant.

-The DEA strung one informant along for 20 years with the promise of citizenship. She still hasn’t received it.