Latest U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration News
Jury convicts former DEA agent of obstruction but fails to reach verdict on Buffalo bribery charges
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — A federal jury on Friday convicted a former U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent of obstruction of justice and lying to federal agents. But jurors acquitted Joseph Bongiovanni of a charge that he improperly wiped his DEA cellphone and failed to reach a verdict on a...
Jurors to begin deliberating in case against former DEA agent accused of taking bribes from Mafia
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Seven weeks of testimony that featured more than 70 witnesses left no doubt that a former U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent accepted cash bribes to shield childhood friends and suspects with ties to organized crime from law enforcement, a prosecutor told jurors...
Feds accuse alleged Japanese crime boss of conspiring to traffic nuclear material
NEW YORK (AP) — A leader of a Japan-based crime syndicate conspired to traffic uranium and plutonium from Myanmar in the belief that Iran would use it to make nuclear weapons, U.S. prosecutors alleged Wednesday. Takeshi Ebisawa, 60, and his confederates showed samples of nuclear...
'Little dark secret': DEA agent on trial accused of taking $250K in bribes from Mafia
BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — The way prosecutors tell it, Joseph Bongiovanni went to work for years with a “little dark secret.” Behind the veneer of a veteran U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent, they alleged, was a turncoat on the take from the Buffalo Mafia, offering an...
Venezuela bribery witness gets light sentence in wake of Biden's pardoning of Maduro ally
MIAMI (AP) — A Venezuelan businessman who helped hide almost $17 million in bribe payments by an ally of President Nicolas Maduro was sentenced to six months in prison Friday by a federal judge who expressed frustration that his cooperation with law enforcement was undone by President Joe...
Secret US spying program targeted top Venezuelan officials, flouting international law
MIAMI (AP) — A secret memo obtained by The Associated Press details a yearslong covert operation by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration that sent undercover operatives into Venezuela to surreptitiously record and build drug-trafficking cases against the country’s leadership – a plan the...
Takeaways from AP report on the DEA's secret spying program in Venezuela
MIAMI (AP) — It was a plan the United States knew from the start would arguably violate international law. The Associated Press obtained a secret 2018 memo detailing a covert operation by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration that sent undercover operatives into Venezuela to...
Miami attorneys bankrolled DEA bribery scheme, federal prosecutors say
MIAMI (AP) — Federal prosecutors are expanding their investigation into a bribery scheme involving two former U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration supervisors, turning their attention to two Miami defense attorneys suspected of profiting from repeated leaks of confidential DEA information. ...
