The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration inappropriately paid an Amtrak employee more than $850,000 over 20 years to provide information on passengers who may be smuggling drugs, according a report from the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General.
The OIG also released a separate report saying the DEA arranged to pay a government airport screener to act as a confidential source. The screener, however, never provided information of any value to the DEA.
But the OIG’s problem with these arrangements wasn’t that transportation officials were reporting people’s actions to the DEA. Instead, OIG said it made no sense for the DEA to pay these people for information, as they are already required by law to offer it up for free.
“The OIG determined that over a period of 20 years, the DEA paid the Amtrak employee $854,460 as of January 2014 for information that was available at no cost to the government in violation of federal regulations relating to the use of government property, thereby wasting substantial government funds,” the OIG wrote.
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