RSS Feed
September 26th, 2013 
Peter Nolan
Officials said the illegal cigarette trade could generate cash to rival the
income from drug trafficking.
Inspector General Michael Horowitz has criticised the ATF and expressed
concern at the “serious lack of oversight”.
He wrote that in one unauthorised operation approximately $15 million worth of
cigarettes were sold undercover over an 18-month period, in which one
confidential informant was allowed to keep more than $4.9 million in profits.
ATF “misused the proceeds from churning investigations” and often
failed to account properly for assets purchased during undercover
operations, Mr Horowitz wrote in the audit.
The agency has a history of controversy. In 2009 it attracted criticism for
another operation known as ‘Fast and Furious’ – a sting operation in which
the agency lost, according to The Washington Post, an estimated 2,000 guns
in Mexico. A US Border Patrol agent, Brian Terry, was killed in 2010 during
a shoot-out in the Arizona borderlands in which guns tracked by the ATF were
later found.
Posted in 
