America's DEA Ordered to Stop Searching Random Travellers at Airports - and Seizing Their Cash

America's Justice Department 'has ordered all consensual searches by drug enforcement agents conducted at the nation's airports stopped,' reports Georgia's local TV station Atlanta News First — after their series of investigations 'uncovered how the agents often search innocent passengers at airport gates, looking for cash.'

On Thursday, the department made public a November 12, 2024, directive from the deputy attorney general to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) that it suspend 'all consensual encounters at mass transportation facilities unless they are either connected to an ongoing, predicated investigation involving one or more identified targets or criminal networks or approved by the DEA Administrator based on exigent circumstances.' The management advisory memorandum was issued by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz.

The memo specifically mentioned the case of an airline passenger interviewed by Atlanta News First Chief Investigator Brendan Keefe, author of the Atlanta News First investigation, In Plane Sight. The award-winning series uncovered how drug agents have been seizing anything over $5,000 if airline passengers can't prove — on the spot — that their own money didn't come from drug trafficking. The government seizes the cash when no drugs are found, without arresting the traveler or charging them with a crime, and the DEA gets to keep the money it seizes.

After witnessing the Atlanta News First series, the passenger in question — who was departing from Cincinnati and heading to New York, where he lives — refused consent to have his bags searched at the gate... 'The DOJ Office of the Inspector General (OIG) further learned that the DEA Task Force Group selected this traveler for the encounter based on information provided by a DEA confidential source, who was an employee of a commercial airline, about travelers who had purchased tickets within 48 hours of the travel,' the memo said. 'The OIG learned that the DEA had been paying this employee a percentage of forfeited cash seized by the DEA office from passengers at the local airport when the seizure resulted from information the employee had provided to the DEA. The employee had received tens of thousands of dollars from the DEA over the past several years.'
The news station's investigation 'also revealed passengers selected for what the government calls 'random, consensual encounters' are actually profiled by the drug agents who search Black men far more often than any other group of passengers,' according to the article.

'The reports analyzed data showing that, for drug agents to find just one passenger with money, they have to publicly search 10 departing passengers.'

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