Drug Enforcement Administration agents in Colombia who allegedly engaged in “sex parties” with prostitutes hired by local drug cartels also arranged for paid sex for at least two Secret Service agents traveling to the country to protect President Obama in 2012.
The Justice Department inspector general uncovered the DEA’s sex parties after allegations arose about misconduct by the Secret Service and DEA agents in the 2012 prostitution scandal in Colombia. The IG on Thursday released a 97-page report detailing the allegations, including an explosive charge that local drug cartels funded the “sex parties.”
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While the allegations about the DEA facilitating paid sex for Secret Service agents in Colombia is not new, the Washington Examiner obtained detailed information through a Freedom of Information Act request last fall about how three DEA agents stationed in Cartagena allegedly made the arrangements.
According to a DOJ Office of Inspector General report of the investigation, on the night of April 13, 2012, three DEA agents stationed in Cartagena, Colombia, had dinner with at least two Secret Service agents at a local restaurant and invited them back to one of the agent’s government-furnished apartments for drinks afterward.
The OIG report is redacted to exclude the names of the DEA and Secret Service agents involved.
During the dinner, at least one agent was on his cell phone texting or emailing women, and two women joined the group after the meal.
Back at the apartment, one of the women offered an agent a massage, and one DEA agent interceded and negotiated a price of 150,000 Colombian pesos or $75 U.S. dollars for the massage.
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According to one Secret Service agent’s account in the report, before the pair retreated to a spare bedroom, one of the DEA agents allegedly offered the Secret Service agent two condoms “in case you need them.”
The DEA agent who rented the apartment denied providing the condoms.
The Secret Service agent in question denied being interested in sex at first and said he shoved the condoms into his pocket because he didn’t want to refuse them.
The pair retreated to a spare bedroom where the woman performed oral sex during the massage, according to the report. The OIG determined that after the encounter took place, one of the DEA agents provided the woman a “wad” of pesos in exchange for $50 in U.S. currency, which one of the agents provided the woman for her services.
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During multiple OIG interviews, the Secret Service agents at first denied knowledge of any DEA personnel participating in the solicitation of prostitutes in Colombia. But the OIG obtained contradictory information from the forensic analysis of the DEA agents’ government-issued cell phones.
When confronted with that information, the two Secret Service agents admitted to paying for and receiving “erotic massages” that included oral sex. The DEA agents then admitted to having used their DEA-issued cell phones to solicit the encounters.
“All three subjects resisted the characterization of their engaging in sexual encounters in exchange for a form of payment as prostitution,” the OIG report, dated Sept. 14, 2012, states.
In analyzing the DEA cell phones in question, the OIG determined that data had been deleted, requiring a forensic analysis. The forensic analysis of both phones revealed “numerous contacts with sexual service providers, who were later identified by the OIG.”
On one of the DEA agents’ phones, OIG forensic examiners found evidence that the agent had deleted 37 of the entries in his contact list after he was told to he needed to surrender the phone.
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“Many of the contacts deleted had telephone numbers that the OIG was able to link to sexual services websites in Colombia,” the report states.
“During his OIG interviews, [the agent] admitted to entering the contact information for the known sexual service providers into his DEA-issued cellular telephone. He denied contacting any of the providers, except for [redacted] for the dinner and erotic message in Cartagena at his apartment,” and on only one other occasion.
The OIG said the agents had engaged in both obstruction of its investigation and lack of candor while under oath.
The report concludes that the DEA agents’ association with prostitutes in a foreign country placed them “at risk for blackmail and other potential breaches of national security.”
The same inspector general forwarded the findings to the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, who declined to take up the case.
It also handed over its findings to the DEA for “appropriate action.”
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The DEA agents who helped hire the women received a relatively light penalty – all were allowed to keep their jobs, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
Along with the DEA agents, eleven members of the military were accused of having sex with women during the same week, according to the same two sources. Nine were punished outside of the military justice system, which included docking their pay and forcing them to do extra work around the base. Two chose to undergo a court martial, but it’s not clear whether they were ever punished.
Critics of the way the Secret Service handled the prostitution scandal argue that it’s indicative of larger problems the agency has with investigating and disciplining agents suspected of misbehavior. The two sources familiar with the alleged misdeeds related to the Colombia prostitution scandal said top agency officials doled out punishments unevenly.
By the time the Secret Service internal investigation ended, nine agents had lost their jobs. Some agents were allowed to retire or keep their clearances, which makes them eligible for future intelligence work, while others were not.
