A pair of informants got $6 million and agents spent freely. The
Justice Department fought to keep records of the operation secret.
BRISTOL, Va. — For seven years, agents at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives followed an unwritten policy: If you needed to buy something for one of your cases, do not bother asking Washington. Talk to agents in Bristol, Va., who controlled a multimillion-dollar account unrestricted by Congress or the bureaucracy.
Need a flashy BMW for an undercover operation? Call Bristol.
A vending machine with a hidden camera? Bristol.
Travel expenses? Take this credit card. It’s on Bristol.
When The New York Times revealed the existence of the secret account in February, publicly available documents made it seem like the work of a few agents run amok. But thousands of pages of newly unsealed records reveal a widespread scheme — a highly unorthodox merger of an undercover law enforcement operation and a legitimate business. What began as a way to catch black-market cigarette dealers quickly transformed into a nearly untraceable A.T.F. slush fund that agents from around the country could tap.
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DelMarVa's Premier Source for News, Opinion, Analysis, and Human Interest Contact Publisher Joe Albero at alberobutzo@wmconnect.com or 410-430-5349
4 comments:
All that authorized this account and all responsible for this secretive account should be fired. They used tax dollars for expenditures that were not authorized. That is called embezzlement.
But they're Law Enforcement Officers. They will never be held accountable.
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The US government is run by its intelligence agencies.
That is the meaning of the term: Deep State.
Dark budgets. This is one they wanted you to know about.
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