U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration

FILE - This image provided by the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York on Oct. 26, 2023 shows Manny Recio, a former U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration supervisor. The former U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration supervisor was sentenced Tuesday, May 14, 2024, to three years in prison for bribing a longtime colleague to leak DEA intelligence to Miami defense lawyers seeking to profit off the timing of indictments and other sensitive information about federal drug investigations. (U.S. Attorney's Office via AP)

Veteran DEA agent sentenced to 3 years for bribing former colleague to leak intelligence

A former U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration supervisor has been sentenced to three years in prison for bribing a longtime colleague to leak DEA intelligence to Miami defense lawyers seeking to profit off the timing of indictments and other investigative information.
 
Budtender Rey Cruz weighs cannabis for a customer at the Marijuana Paradise on Friday, April 19, 2024, in Portland, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)

What marijuana reclassification means for the United States

 
FILE - In this Friday, March 22, 2019, file photo, a marijuana plant is visible at Compassionate Care Foundation's medical marijuana dispensary in Egg Harbor Township, N.J. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration will move to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug, a historic shift to generations of American drug policy that could have wide ripple-effects across the country. The DEA’s proposal still must be reviewed by the White House Office of Management and Budget. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)

US poised to ease restrictions on marijuana in historic shift, but it’ll remain controlled substance

 
FILE - This image provided by the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York on Oct. 26, 2023 shows John Costanzo Jr. A federal judge sentenced the longtime U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent to four years in prison for leaking DEA intelligence to defense lawyers. Costanzo's sentence was announced Wednesday, April 24, 2024, in Manhattan federal court months after he was found guilty of bribery and honest-services wire fraud. (U.S. Attorney's Office via AP, File)

Veteran DEA agent sentenced to 4 years for leaking intelligence in Miami bribery conspiracy

 
FILE - Former DEA agent Joseph Bongiovanni arrives at the Robert H. Jackson U.S. Court House for a hearing for an upcoming trial on drug and bribery charges, Wednesday, June 21, 2023. A federal jury on Friday, April 12, 2024, convicted Bongiovanni of obstruction of justice and lying to federal agents. (Derek Gee/The Buffalo News via AP, File)

Jury convicts former DEA agent of obstruction but fails to reach verdict on Buffalo bribery charges

 

US drug control agency will move to reclassify marijuana in a historic shift, AP sources say

The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration will move to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug, a historic shift to generations of American drug policy that could have wide ripple effects across the country.

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Former DEA agent Joseph Bongiovanni arrives at the Robert H. Jackson U.S. Court House for a hearing for an upcoming trial on drug and bribery charges, Wednesday, June 21, 2023. The veteran U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent is on trial in Buffalo, N.Y., on charges he took $250,000 in bribes from the Mafia to derail investigations and keep his childhood friends out of prison. (Derek Gee/The Buffalo News via AP)

A DEA agent on trial is accused of taking $250K in bribes from the Mafia

A veteran U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent is on trial in Buffalo, New York, on charges he took $250,000 in bribes from the Mafia to derail investigations and keep his childhood friends out of prison.
 
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro holds a small copy of his nation's constitution during ceremony marking the start of the judicial year at the Supreme Court in Caracas, Venezuela, Jan. 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos, File)

Exclusive: A secret US program spied on top Venezuelan officials to build drug cases

A secret memo obtained by The Associated Press details a covert operation by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration that sent undercover operatives into Venezuela to surreptitiously record and build drug-trafficking cases against the country’s leadership – a plan the U.S. acknowledged from the sta
 
FILE - This combination of photos provided by the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York on Oct. 26, 2023, shows John Costanzo Jr., left, and Manny Recio. The U.S. Attorney's Office in Manhattan filed court papers Monday, Jan. 22, 2024, accusing the lawyers of bankrolling the scheme and asking a judge to allow prosecutors to review nearly 1,000 emails, text messages and recordings of protected phone calls between the attorneys and Manny Recio, a former DEA agent who later worked for the attorneys as a private investigator. (U.S. Attorney's Office via AP)

Miami attorneys bankrolled DEA bribery scheme, federal prosecutors say

Federal prosecutors are expanding their investigation into a bribery scheme involving two former U.S.
 
FILE - This June 13, 2016, file photo shows Drug Enforcement Administration agents in Florida. Jorge Hernández is expected to play a key role in the October 2023 Manhattan federal trial of two veteran DEA agents charged in a $73,000 bribery conspiracy involving leaked information about ongoing drug investigations. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel via AP, File)

‘Greed and corruption': Federal jury convicts veteran DEA agents in bribery conspiracy

A federal jury convicted two longtime U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration supervisors Wednesday of leaking confidential information to defense attorneys as part of a bribery conspiracy that prosecutors said imperiled high-profile cases and the lives of overseas drug informants.
 
FILE - Pedestrians walk near a poster asking for the freedom of Colombian businessman and Venezuelan special envoy Alex Saab, in Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Sept. 9, 2021. The U.S. Justice Department is prosecuting Saab for alleged money laundering. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos, File)

DEA agent leaked secret information about Maduro ally targeted by US, prosecutor says

Prosecutors played wiretaps in federal court in New York showing a federal narcotics agent leaked sensitive case information about one of Washington’s top criminal targets in Venezuela — Alex Saab.
 
FILE - This June 13, 2016, file photo shows Drug Enforcement Administration agents in Florida. Jorge Hernández is expected to play a key role in the October 2023 Manhattan federal trial of two veteran DEA agents charged in a $73,000 bribery conspiracy involving leaked information about ongoing drug investigations. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel via AP, File)

Shadowy snitch takes starring role in bribery trial of veteran DEA agents

A beefy, bald-headed informant known by the Spanish nickname Boliche – bowling ball – is expected to play a key role in the federal trial this month in New York of two veteran U.S.
 
FILE - Marijuana plants are seen at a growing facility in Washington County, N.Y., May 12, 2023. The Health and Human Services Department has recommended removing marijuana from a category of drugs deemed to have “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.” The agency advised moving pot from that “Schedule I” group to the less tightly regulated “Schedule III.” The decision is up to the Drug Enforcement Administration. (AP Photo/Hans Pennink, File)

Marijuana recommendation by US health agency hailed as first step to easing weed restrictions

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has delivered a recommendation to the Drug Enforcement Administration on marijuana policy, and Senate leaders are hailing it as a first step toward easing federal restrictions on the drug.
 
Kansas Highway Patrol Superintendent Herman Jones, in uniform, responds to introductions of other state officials during the inauguration for Gov. Laura Kelly's second term, Monday, Jan. 9, 2023, outside the Kansas Statehouse in Topeka, Kan. Jones is retiring from the patrol and Kelly has named a high-ranking U.S. Drug Administration official to replace him. (AP Photo/John Hanna)

Kansas governor picks high-ranking DEA official to take over embattled highway patrol

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas governor chose a high-ranking U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration official Friday to head the state highway patrol, replacing a retiring superintendent who is facing federal lawsuits over the agency’s policing and allegations that he sexually harassed female employees
 
DEA Administrator Anne Milgram speaks during a news conference at the Justice Department in Washington, Friday, April 14, 2023. The Justice Department has charged 28 members of Mexico’s powerful Sinaloa cartel, including sons of notorious drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, in a sprawling fentanyl-trafficking investigation. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

DEA chief faces probe into ‘swampy’ hires, no-bid contracts

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal watchdog is investigating whether the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration under chief Anne Milgram improperly awarded millions of dollars in no-bid contracts to hire her past associates, people familiar with the probe told The Associated Press.
 
FILE - Drug Enforcement Administration Administrator Anne Milgram speaks during a news conference at the Department of Justice in Washington, Tuesday, Oct. 26, 2021. After nearly two years and at least $1.4 million spent, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration on Friday, March 24, 2023, released an external review of its overseas operations that gave short shrift to recent corruption scandals and offered a series of recommendations that critics dismissed as overly vague. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)

DEA overseas review barely mentions corruption scandals

After nearly two years and $1.4 million spent, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration released an external review of its overseas operations that barely mentions recent corruption scandals and offers a series of recommendations that critics dismissed as overly vague.
 
This photo obtained by The Associated Press shows Jose Irizarry in Cartagena, Colombia, in 2017. Irizarry accepts he’s the most corrupt agent in U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration history, admitting he conspired with Colombian cartels to build a lavish lifestyle. But he says he won't take the rap alone, accusing long-trusted DEA colleagues of joining him in skimming millions from money laundering stings to fund a decade’s worth of high living. (AP Photo)

DEA’s most corrupt agent: Parties, sex amid ‘unwinnable war’

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — José Irizarry accepts that he’s known as the most corrupt agent in U.S.
 
This April 28, 2021 booking photo provided by the Copiah County, Miss., Sheriff's Office shows DEA Agent Harold Duane Poole. Records obtained by The Associated Press raise new questions about how Poole avoided trial after he was charged with the murder of Chase Brewer and whether DEA brass overreached to protect one of their own amid a flurry of misconduct cases. (Copiah County Sheriff's Office via AP)

In Mississippi, a trespasser, a killing and DEA meddling

CRYSTAL SPRINGS, Miss. (AP) — U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration Agent Harold Duane Poole was waiting with his semiautomatic service rifle — and an explanation — when deputies arrived at his sprawling wooded property on a warm spring night last year and found a bullet-riddled body near the drivewa
 
FILE - In this March 8, 1985, file photo, U.S. Marine Corps pallbearers carry the casket holding the body of slain U.S. Drug Enforcement agent Enrique Camarena Salazar after it arrived at North Island Naval Air Station, in San Diego. Mexican drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero was only ever sentenced in Mexico for the killing of Camarena and Mexican pilot Alfredo Zavala Avelar in 1985, but his gang apparently killed as many as six U.S. citizens in the western city of Guadalajara around the same time. (AP Photo/Lenny Ignelzi, File)

‘Forgotten’ US victims of Mexican drug lord want justice

When fugitive 1980s Mexican drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero was arrested in Mexico last week, it stirred up old, terrible memories for Lannie Walker, the daughter of American writer John Clay Walker.
 
FILE - This image released by the FBI shows the wanted poster for Rafael Caro-Quintero, who was behind the killing of a U.S. DEA agent in 1985. Caro-Quintero has been captured by Mexican forces nearly a decade after walking out of a Mexican prison and returning to drug trafficking, an official with Mexico's navy confirmed Friday, July 15, 2022. (FBI via AP, File)

Mexico’s capture of drug kingpin could be signal to US

The United States’ motivation to find infamous drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero was never in doubt. It offered a $20 million reward for information leading to his capture.
 
This undated photo provided by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Los Angeles Field Division, shows some of the seized approximately 1 million fake pills containing fentanyl that were seized when agents served a search warrant, July 5, 2022, at a home in Inglewood, Calif. (DEA via AP)

1 million pills with fentanyl seized in record bust near LA

One million pills containing fentanyl were seized during a raid near Los Angeles this month in what the U.S.
 
FILE - This June 13, 2016, file photo shows Drug Enforcement Administration agents in Florida. A current U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent and a former supervisor in the agency were indicted Friday, May 20, 2022 on federal charges accusing them of leaking confidential law enforcement information to defense lawyers in Florida in exchange for cash and gifts. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel via AP)

Veteran Miami DEA agents charged in bribery conspiracy

A current U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent and a former supervisor in the agency were charged Friday with leaking confidential law enforcement information to narco defense lawyers in Miami in exchange for $70,000 in cash.
 

Colombian man extradited to US to face narco-terrorism case

NEW YORK (AP) — A Colombian man was brought to New York to face charges Friday that he tried to broker deals for weapons with known drug dealing terrorist groups and hoped to murder a U.S. agent as a trophy.
 

British Virgin Islands premier arrested on US drug charges

U.S. authorities say the premier of the British Virgin Islands and the director of the Caribbean territory’s ports have been arrested on drug smuggling charges in South Florida.
 
FILE - In this Sept. 9, 2021 file photo, pedestrians walk near a poster of Alex Saab that reads in Spanish "Alex Saab Free. They haven't been able to bend him," in Caracas, Venezuela. Newly unsealed court records show that the Colombian businessman linked to Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was secretly signed up by the D.E.A. as a cooperating source in 2018 and gave agents information about bribes he paid to Venezuelan officials. However, he was deactivated as a source after failing to meet a deadline to surrender himself and was indicted in Miami federal court on charges of siphoning millions from state contracts. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos, File)

Businessman close to Maduro was DEA informant, records show

Newly unsealed court records show that a Colombian businessman linked to Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was secretly signed up by the Drug Enforcement Administration as a cooperating source in 2018 and gave agents information about bribes he paid to Venezuelan officials.
 
FILE - Former DEA agent Jose Irizarry arrives at the United States Courthouse Thursday, Nov. 18, 2021, in Tampa, Fla. Irizarry, a once-standout U.S. narcotics agent who used his badge to build a lavish lifestyle of expensive cars, parties on yachts and Tiffany jewels, was sentenced to more than 12 years in federal prison on Thursday, Dec. 9, 2021, for conspiring to launder money with a Colombian cartel. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara, File)

DEA agent gets 12 years for conspiring with Colombian cartel

A once-standout U.S. narcotics agent who used his badge to build a lavish lifestyle of luxury cars and Tiffany jewelry has been sentenced to 12 years in federal prison for conspiring to launder money with a Colombian cartel.
 

Man pleads guilty in cocaine plot tied to couple’s abduction

A Montreal man pleaded guilty in federal court Thursday in Vermont to being part of an effort to smuggle 1,500 kilos (3,300 pounds) of cocaine from Peru to Vermont and then to Canada in a plot that prosecutors say was connected to the kidnapping of an older New York couple last year.
 
FILE - In this Thursday, Aug. 10, 2017 file photo, police officers walk among packages of seized cocaine at the Pacific port of Buenaventura, Colombia, after about one ton of cocaine was seized in a container during an operation by counternarcotics police at the port. In 2018, Capt. Juan Pablo Mosquera, a Colombian national police officer who was part of an elite unit that worked closely with U.S. anti-narcotics agents, was extradited to Miami to stand trial on charges he betrayed the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration to the same traffickers they were jointly fighting. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara)

Colombian cop who ran squad vetted by DEA pleads guilty

A Colombian national police officer who was part of an elite unit that worked closely with U.S. anti-narcotics agents has pleaded guilty to charges he betrayed the Drug Enforcement Administration to the same traffickers they were jointly fighting.
 
A general view of the building in Madrid, Spain, Friday, Sept. 10, 2021, where the former Venezuelan military spy chief, retired Maj. Gen. Hugo Carvajal was arrested by police. Police in Madrid on Thursday arrested a former Venezuelan spymaster wanted on U.S. narcoterrorism charges, capturing him in a hideout apartment nearly two years after he defied a Spanish extradition order and disappeared. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

Wigged out: A Venezuelan spymaster’s life on the lam

Wigs, a fake moustache and a new safehouse every three months are just some of the tools of deception that authorities in Spain believe a former Venezuelan spymaster relied on to evade capture on a U.S. warrant for narcoterrorism.
 
This booking image provided by the St. Charles, La., Parish Sheriff’s Office shows Chad Scott, a prolific narcotics agent known as the “white devil” among drug traffickers. Scott was sentenced Thursday, Aug. 12, 2021, to more than 13 years behind bars for stealing money from suspects, falsifying government records and committing perjury during a federal trial. The sentencing capped a five-year case that shook the DEA and resulted in convictions of three other members of a New Orleans-based federal drug task force. ( St. Charles Parish Sheriff’s Office via AP)

Disgraced DEA agent sentenced to 13 years in corruption case

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A prolific narcotics agent known as the “white devil” among drug traffickers was sentenced Thursday to more than 13 years behind bars for stealing money from suspects, falsifying government records and committing perjury during a federal trial.
 
FILE - This June 13, 2016 file photo shows Drug Enforcement Administration agents in Florida. On Wednesday, June 23, 2021, a federal judge threatened to throw out the guilty plea of Jose I. Irizarry, a veteran U.S. narcotics agent who conspired with a Colombian cartel money launderer — an unexpected twist that could derail one of the most egregious misconduct cases in the history of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. (Joe Burbank/Orlando Sentinel via AP, File)

Judge threatens to toss DEA agent’s plea in corruption case

A federal judge has threatened to throw out the guilty plea of a veteran U.S. narcotics agent who conspired with a Colombian cartel.
 

Feds say heroin, fentanyl remain biggest drug threat to US

WASHINGTON (AP) — Drug overdose deaths hit the highest level ever recorded in the United States last year, with an estimated 200 people dying per day, according to a report by the U.S.
 
Drug Enforcement Administration regional director Matthew Donahue speaks during an interview, Tuesday, Aug. 14, 2018, in downtown Chicago. Top U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration officials will unveil new plans to combat Mexican drug cartels Wednesday in Chicago alongside members of the Mexican government and federal police, DEA officials told The Associated Press. (AP Photo/Annie Rice)

US, Mexico announce new strategies on cartels

CHICAGO (AP) — U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration officials unveiled some additional strategies in combating Mexican drug cartels Wednesday in Chicago alongside members of the Mexican government, military and federal police, who said one priority was to capture the leader of the increasingly power
 

Indiana crackdown on opioids sparks more pharmacy robberies

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — As the nation’s opioid epidemic intensified, Indiana cracked down on over-prescribing doctors and “pill mills” catering to people with addictions.
 

Suspect shot by DEA is identified

A suspect grazed in the back by a bullet Tuesday evening after allegedly attacking a federal agent has been identified as Jonathan Salas.
 

China carfentanil ban a ‘game-changer’ for opioid epidemic

SHANGHAI (AP) — So deadly it’s considered a terrorist threat, carfentanil has been legal in China— until now.