Another story relating to confidential informant ( human source, HUMINT, CHIS) management that we can all learn from. This news story from Florida makes for sad reading as we see how an officers career has been destroyed and the reputation of the Drug Enforcement Agency dragged down with it. When one reads the heading “Once-standout DEA agent says he conspired with drug cartel” one realizes that this is not some inexperienced officer that has gone astray. We all need to look at what went wrong, the how and the why.

There are a lot of lessons that can be learned from this cases and most of them we have discussed before but it is worth going over some of them again:

1. Managing confidential informants is a high risk business. Officers can and will be corrupted.

2. Agencies need to select the right officers for the role and provide them with intensive training as to how to do it effectively.

3. Informants should only be managed by dedicated officers working in dedicated units. The idea that an officer is a jack of all trains and that any officer can manage informants is outdated and misguided.

4. Informants should only be managed in a highly regulated system where there is intrusive oversight.

What is readily obvious in this case is that the officer was able to continue with his corrupt activity over a prolonged period and to a depth that should have been readily detected by supervisors. This is negligence on the part of the agency. and surprising coming from an Federal Agency that has in the past been subject to criticism from oversight bodies in relation to informant management practices. Officers should never be able to do what this officer appears to have been doing. It is the sign of a broken system.

Every meeting with an informant should be recorded; supervisors should be able to listen to what has been said. Every aspect related to the management of an informant should be documented and subject to continual monitoring by supervisors. Comprehensive risk documents should be prepared for the management of every source and control measures put in place.

It will be easy to blame this on “one bad apple” but that would be a mistake. It is about a bad system for managing informants. This was avoidable.

And if you want to know what you need to do for your agency to avoid this we wrote it all down in our book Human Sources: Managing Confidential Informants. So for $10 you will know how to protect your agency.

And if you need help please do not hesitate to ask. This is what we do and an email costs nothing: info@hsmtraining.com We will get back to you asap.