Seventeen people were arrested and a large amount of drugs were seized during an undercover operation targeting DEA special agents during a formal Drug Enforcement Administration employee party, officials said Thursday.
About 50 law enforcement officers, the Department of Public Safety, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Richmond and Roanoke police departments participated in the drug-trafficking investigation.
The investigation focused on a number of corrupted members of the Drug Enforcement Administration who are suspected of laundering more than $170 million in illicit drug proceeds, according to a news release from the Roanoke County Sheriff’s Office.
“These guys were partying like there was no tomorrow. They had access to drugs, money and unlimited bitches from the cartels,” one special DEA agent told reporters under the guise of anonymity.
“Employees would do blow at the office in front of everybody and bang prostitutes in the bathroom on the lunch hour. It felt like being at the Playboy mansion. It was the greatest job ever” one recently retired DEA employee admitted to reporters.
Top DEA officials got suspicious when a woman unrelated to the agency was evacuated last year from the Drug Enforcement Administration’s main office by ambulance after suffering a drug-related overdose.
“One prostitute had to leave in an ambulance because they had put so much cocaine in her vagina that she overdosed,” the former DEA agent explained.
It is estimated that since 2001 the Drug Enforcement Administration has seized over 237 million pounds of illicit drugs, although a recent 2016 DEA internal investigation revealed that more than 67% of these narcotics were found to be “untraceable, unaccounted for and or misplaced.”
