Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com Nine former heads of the DEA sent a strong message to Attorney General Eric Holder: Fight against efforts to legalize recreational marijuana in three states, the Reuters reports. Failing to say anything, they said, would suggest he condones legalization. The former officials told Holder that legalization would fly in the face of…
By Del Quentin Wilber Washington Post Staff Writer WASHINGTON –– The DEA agents sat day after day in their smoke-filled command post in a Bucharest police station, checking their phones and e-mails for confirmation that one of the world’s most notorious arms dealers was coming. Their sting was an elaborate one, a ruse involving a…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com Federal agencies are increasingly using administrative subpoenas to force the release of information from virtually all businesses, a tactic that critics say strips the civil liberties of Americans, Wired reports. The DEA, for example, can issue an administrative subpoena without a court warrant if the agent believes the information is relevant to…
By Allan Lengel ticklethewire.com With the meth problem growing, DEA’s top boss Michele M. Leonhart announced Thursday the signing of a new memorandum of cooperation between the U.S. and Mexico “to aggressively address the continuing problem” of production. In a press release, the DEA said the U.S. and Mexican officials enjoy a strong cooperative relationship…
By Van Smith Baltimore City Paper BALTIMORE — The Lancair IV-P airplane is a sleek four-seater, capable of flying 330 miles per hour and more than 1,500 miles on a tank of gas. The one that was seized in June 2009 from Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport, near Denver, had been purchased the previous summer for…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com Federal authorities have the right to look at the utility bills of suspected marijuana growers, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday, the Associated Press reports. The case involved Golden Valley Electric Association, which refused to disclose the records to the DEA. The DEA issued a subpoena for information on a…
By Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com The owner of a Texas trucking company is demanding the DEA compensate him for an undercover sting that led to his employee’s death and the damage of a company truck, the San Antonio Express reports. Truck company owner Craig Patty said he had no idea Lawrence Chapa was working undercover for…
Steve Neavling ticklethewire.com Jonathan V. Hoang wanted to be a federal law enforcement agency since he was a child. He even unsuccessfully applied to the agency in 1986. Now the 47-year-old San Jose man is accused of impersonating a federal drug agent by forging credentials, adding lights and sires to his truck and using his…
