Sex romps for US drug cops

US drug enforcement agents had “sex parties” with prostitutes paid for by the Colombian cartels they were supposed to be combating, according to a US government report.

In a scathing report from the US Justice Department, agents from the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) are accused of leaving their weapons in the hands of Colombian police so they could go have sex with the women.

Seven of the 10 accused men have admitted their role in the sex parties and were suspended from duty for up to 10 days before being allowed to return to work.

The parties are alleged to have taken place over a three-year period between 2005 and 2008. The report also alleges that three DEA supervisors were “provided with money, expensive gifts and weapons from drug cartel members”.

The allegations are the latest in a long line of claims of misbehaviour by US law enforcement agents while stationed abroad. The issue first came to light in 2012 when several of Barack Obama’s bodyguards were sent home from a trip to Colombia for allegedly patronising prostitutes.

The report also said that several allegations were made against law enforcement officers, but not passed up the chain of command.

The Office of the Inspector General, the Justice Department watchdog, also alleged that both the FBI and the DEA stonewalled their efforts to get information about allegations against agents.

Both agencies eventually agreed to hand over heavily redacted files and the watchdog office said it “cannot be completely confident that the FBI and DEA provided us with all information relevant to this review”.—