Government agents acting without authorization conducted dozens of undercover investigations of illegal tobacco sales, misused some of $162 million in profits from the stings and lost track of at least 420 million cigarettes, the Justice Department's inspector general said Wednesday.
In one case, agents for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives sold $15 million in cigarettes and later turned over $4.9 million in profits from the sales to a confidential informant — even though the agency did not properly account for the transaction.
The ATF's newly appointed director, B. Todd Jones, said the audit covered only selected, "historical" ATF investigations between 2006 and 2011, and said the agency had tightened its internal guidelines since then.
The audit described widespread lack of ATF oversight and inadequate paperwork in the agency's "churning investigations," undercover operations that use proceeds from illicit cigarette sales to pay for the ATF's costs. The audit came as a new blow to a beleaguered agency still reeling from congressional inquiries into the ATF's flawed handling of the Operation Fast and Furious weapons tracking probes in Mexico.
"ATF's guidance regarding churning investigations lacked breadth and specificity, and managers at ATF headquarters as well as managers and special agents at ATF field offices often disregarded it," Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz wrote in the 53-page audit.
The inspector general recommended tightened ATF procedures for documenting, tracking and reviewing proceeds from its undercover tobacco stings.
Jones said the agency has adopted most of those guidelines. While accepting responsibility for "management and oversight lapses that allowed those deficiencies to develop," he insisted that "the report's findings do not reflect current ATF policy or practice in this area." Read more >>
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