Audit of the Drug Enforcement Agency Management and Oversight of its Confidential Source Program, Audit Division 16 -33. September 2016.

“The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) considers its Confidential Source Program to be critical to its pursuit of illegal narcotics trafficking. However, confidential sources can be motivated by factors other than combating crime, including financial gain and avoidance of punishment; therefore, care must be taken to evaluate and supervise their use. Between October 1, 2010, and September 30, 2015 , the DEA had over 18,000 active confidential sources assigned to its domestic offices, with over 9,000 of those sources receiving approximately $237 million in payments for information or services they provided to the DEA. In July 2015, the Department of Justice (Department or DOJ) Office of the Inspector General (OIG) issued a report on the DEA’s confidential source policies and its oversight of higher-risk confidential sources. We found the DEA’s confidential source policies were not in full compliance with the Attorney General’s Guidelines Regarding the Use of Confidential Informants (AG Guidelines). In this review, we concluded that DEA’s management and oversight of, and policies governing, its Confidential Source Program required significant improvement. In particular, we found DEA field offices bear disproportionate responsibility for confidential source management and review. For example, DEA headquarters offices do not provide comprehensive oversight to ensure that field offices’ establishment and use of sources, and payments to them, are appropriate, reasonable, and justified.”