“The DEA wasn’t keeping records of its encounters unless it found cash or drugs,” Horowitz said.
An airline employee collected tens of thousands of dollars from the DEA for flagging travelers who bought tickets within 48 hours of departure. The informant got a percentage of whatever cash agents seized. A task force officer pulled a passenger’s bag off a plane in Cincinnati with no warrant, found nothing, and the DEA then told the Inspector General no record of the stop existed. Only a cellphone video got the program suspended.