DOJ Orders DEA to Suspend Passenger Searches After Watchdog Report Raises ‘Concerns’

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has ordered the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) to suspend searches of passengers at airports and other places after a DOJ watchdog report found “concerns” over the way DEA officials were conducting the searches.

In a press release from the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG), Michael E. Horowitz, on Thursday, it was revealed that the OIG had found instances in which DEA officers were “not complying with its own policy on consensual encounters conducted at mass transportation facilities.”

The press release from Horowitz found the DEA not following its policy regarding consensual encounters with passengers, and this “resulted in DEA and DEA Task Force Group personnel creating potentially significant operational and legal risks.”

Examples of how the DEA was “creating potentially significant operational and legal risks,” were the DEA not documenting “each consensual encounter,” and required training for DEA and DEA Task Force Group personnel being suspended since 2023.

“In 2023, the DEA suspended the transportation interdiction training required by DEA policy and has not restarted it,” the press release said. “As a result, the DEA was not ensuring that all DEA Task Force Group personnel conducting transportation interdiction activities completed that required training, despite the DEA’s prior representations to the OIG, in connection with resolution of a recommendation in a 2015 OIG report, that the DEA would do so, creating significant risk that DEA Task Force Group personnel will conduct transportation interdiction activities improperly.”

The press release referenced an incident in which the DEA Task Force Group had “selected” a traveler for a consensual encounter “based on information provided by a DEA confidential source, who was an employee of a commercial airline.” This employee had reportedly been paid “a percentage of forfeited cash seized by the DEA office from passengers” at the airport on seizures that had been conducted as a result of “information the employee” had given.

Although the traveler had “declined to provide consent,” the traveler’s carry-on bag ended up being detained, and “a law enforcement drug-detection dog” ended up alerting “to the bag.” The search ended with no drug, money, “or other contraband” being discovered:

The management alert released today also describes an incident earlier this year involving a traveler who was approached for a consenual encounter by a DEA Task Force Officer while boarding a flight. During this incident, after the traveler declined to provide consent, the DEA Task Force Officer detained the traveler’s carry-on bag; subsequently, a law enforcement drug-detection dog, according to the DEA, alerted to the bag. The passenger eventually signed a consent form. No cash, drugs, or other contraband was found. By that time, the traveler had missed the original flight. The traveler made a video recording of this encounter on a personal recording device, and an edited version of the video and audio has been made public. None of the members of the DEA Task Force Group were wearing a body-worn camera, which is not required by an DEA or Department policy.

The OIG further learned that the DEA Task Force Group selected this traveler for the encounter based on information provided by a DEA confidential source, who was an employee of a commercial airline, about travelers who had purchased tickets within 48 hours of the travel. The OIG learned that the DEA had been paying this employee a percentage of forfeited cash seized by the DEA office from passengers at the local airport when the seizure resulted from information the employee had provided to the DEA. The employee had received tens of thousands of dollars from the DEA over the past several years.

The OIG’s report found that “The Department has long been concerned–and long received complaints–about potential racial profiling in connection with cold consent encounters in transportation settings,” adding that “between 2000 and 2003,” in response to the concerns over “possible racial profiling” the DEA began collecting “consensual encounter data on every encounter in certain mass transportation facilities.”

“In 2003 the DEA terminated its data collection efforts,” the report added. “However, its consensual encounter activities continued.”

On November 12, 2024, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco ordered the DEA to suspend “all consensual encounters at mass transportation facilities unless they are either connected to an ongoing, predicated investigation involving one or more identified targets or criminal networks” or a DEA administrator has approved of the search, according to the press release.