Nicholas Palmeri, DEA Regional Director of North and Central Americas Region, was ousted for diverting funds from Special Investigative Unit funds for a birthday party & other travel expenses.
#ButNothingsHappening
oversight.gov/sites/default/…
This serves as a great example of how what looks like a small investigation pulls threads on so many other investigations & much larger issues.
This isn't about birthday parties, but DEA personnel laundering money for drug cartels, ignoring Chinese fentanyl supplies, & much more.
This report came out about a month ago, but there is so much coming out that it is impossible to see it all.
But within a few minutes, it connected to several other issues.
Some of the funds were used to pay for trips for Acting DEA Administrator Tim Shea...
Tim Shea was the interim US Attorney for Washington DC appointed by Bill Barr before he was appointed as acting DEA Administrator.
Before that he was Barr's right hand man at DOJ.
He took a lot of controversial actions at DOJ's WDC office...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_S…
Was Palmeri using the DEA's SIU funds to pay for Shea's trips in Latin America a means of dirtying up Shea?
Was it the building blocks of a scandal against a guy Barr sent to dig into DEA's corruption?
Palmeri is also under investigation for his contacts with cartel lawyers.
Palmeri had wrecked the US efforts & cooperation in Mexico. Focusing on a murder from 1985 & ignoring fentanyl & other drug issues.
sandiegouniontribune.com/news/nation-wo…
One of the big cases Palmeri lead was the arrest of Mexico's former defense secretary Salvador Cienfuegos at LAX.
But the US dropped charges 5 weeks later.
Was he guilty? I don't know but it caused major issues between Mexico & the Trump Admin shortly before the 2020 election.
Mexican authorities cleared Cienfuegos in January 2021.
Legitimately or not, it is impossible to say.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_…
So what was Palmeri doing?
Hanging out with cartel lawyers in Miami, staying at their vacation homes, etc.
The DEA Director for Canada, Central & South America was hanging out with the cartels lawyers & borrowing their beach houses?
Seems important.
sandiegouniontribune.com/news/nation-wo…
These same cartel lawyers were linked to other examples of corruption at DEA.
Like searching law enforcement databases & help cartel personnel mislead federal investigations.
apnews.com/article/us-dru…
The DEA agents tried to influence DOJ prosecutors on behalf of a target of an investigation for $30k in cash.
These Swamp creatures are always so cheap.
FBI placed former DEA Supervisor Recio under surveillance by at least 2020...
Why is that wiretap so important?
Recio was the former DEA Assistant Special Agent in Charge of the Miami division running money laundering investigations. Then became a money laundering consultant.
One of his subordinates got busted in 2021!
Agent Irizarry plead guilty & recieved 12 years for laundering money for Colombian cartels.
Why? Because the DEA had a culture of corruption & taught him how to be corrupt.
apnews.com/article/crime-…
What were they doing? Using DEA's undercover money laundering operations, shell companies & informants, who were supposed to be helping stop cartel money laundering, to corruptly help the cartels that were paying them.
The important key to exposing these networks?
A DOJ OIG investigation into these DEA sting operations that were being used to help big cartels who were paying them launder money while busting small players.
Irizarry claimed he only ot $600k out of these corrupt slushfunds that were used by informants, agents & DOJ prosecutors...
So was Tim Shea's travel paid for with these same funds? Did he know, or was he being implicated in the hopes that he & Barr could protect DEA?
I did a thread when Irizarry was busted by FBI.
I also did a thread breaking down the original OIG Report on corrupt DEA involvement in cartel money laundering operations.
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