http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/article/Owner-wants-DEA-to-pay-for-truck-damage-from-sting-3743683.php

Quote :

" Commandeered by one of his drivers, who was secretly working with federal agents, the truck had been hauling marijuana from the border as part of an undercover operation. And without Patty's knowledge, the Drug Enforcement Administration was paying his driver, Lawrence Chapa, to use the truck to bust traffickers. ... His company, which hauls sand as part of hydraulic fracturing operations for oil and gas companies, was pushed to the brink of failure after the attack because the truck was knocked out of commission, he said. Patty had only one other truck in operation. In documents shared with the Houston Chronicle, he is demanding that the DEA pay $133,532 in repairs and lost wages over the bullet-sprayed truck, and $1.3 million more for the damage to himself and his family, who fear retaliation by a drug cartel over the bungled narcotics sting. ... Copies of letters and emails from Patty's insurance company state that it won't pay for repairs because the truck was part of a law-enforcement operation. Patty drew from his 401K retirement fund to repair the truck, which was out of operation for 100 days."

So now not only do we routinely ruin the lives of people involved in drugs, at great cost and increased risk to everyone, now we're going to ruin the lives of people who aren't even remotely connected. Under what though process does anyone in the government think they have a right to use other people's private property for their purposes without the permission of the owners?

7/31/2012 1:53:51 PM

They condemned the truck and seized it under eminent domain.

7/31/2012 1:57:51 PM

Quote :

"At least 17 hours before that early morning phone call, Chapa was shot dead in front of more than a dozen law enforcement officers - all of them taken by surprise by hijackers trying to steal the red Kenworth T600 truck and its load of pot. In the confusion of the attack in northwest Harris County, compounded by officers in the operation not all knowing each other, a Houston policeman shot and wounded a Harris County sheriff's deputy. "

lmao. what a disaster.

[Edited on July 31, 2012 at 2:13 PM. Reason : a]

7/31/2012 2:11:56 PM

Ironically, I am alright with letting the officer who shot the other officer walk because that's what those dumbass cops get.

7/31/2012 9:24:31 PM

The sad thing is the guy driving the truck (who was murdered) probably did not want to be part of the sting either, he got busted for something and they were going to "help him out" if he assisted with some stings.

He was faced with the option of a long prison term or working for the DEA, which ultimately resulted in his murder.

8/11/2012 12:07:45 PM

had this never been a disaster, we would have never heard about it.



it makes you wonder what else we don't know about.





hmm.

8/11/2012 1:02:25 PM

Fast and Furious is really about U.S. backing a Mexican drug cartel

http://youtu.be/jgScZoieC34

8/11/2012 2:49:50 PM

The only way to level the playing field is a federal law that allows a private citizen to seize any government assets that were used in damaging their personal property while conducting a drug investigation. Due process or judicial oversight is not necessary because the DEA was involved with drugs...and drugs are bad they are killing our children and ruining our schools.

8/12/2012 3:49:35 PM

Pfizer Agrees to Pay 60 Million In Fines For Bribery

On August 7, the FBI announced that Pfizer, a major pharmaceutical company headquartered in New York City, has agreed to pay $60 million in fines for violations.

The company agreed to pay $15 million in fines for bribery violations and along with $26.3 million dollars in disgorgement of profits. On top of that, Wyeth LLC, a company Pfizer bought in 2009, agreed to pay another $18.8 million in disgorgement of profits as a result of the bribery violations.

According to Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Mythili Raman of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, and Assistant Director James W. McJunkin, Pfizer committed several violations against the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA). The act was created in 1977 and focuses on accounting transparencies and anti-bribery. (1)

The focus of the Pfizer investigation was the bribery portions of the act. An FBI press release stated that the company violated the act because of “improper payments made to government officials, including publicly employed regulators and health care professionals in Bulgaria, Croatia, Kazakhstan, and Russia.” (2)


http://www.topsecretwriters.com/2012/08/pfizer-60-million-fines-bribery/


Though it is nice to know that the Department of Justice does investigate and ultimately prosecute corporate wrong doing, it would be much nicer to know that the consequences that the justice system doles out would actually punish the company for the crimes that they commit.

Unfortunately, with so little consequences to pay for its actions, there is not much in place to deter other companies from carrying out the same illegal practices, since the rewards are clearly worth the risk – at least until the DOJ smartens up and does its job.

[Edited on August 13, 2012 at 2:33 PM. Reason : .]

8/13/2012 2:33:07 PM

That I don't get. Why are Pfizer shareholders paying fines to the government? Sure, they shouldn't be allowed to profit off illegal activity, but it doesn't seem the fines were calculated based upon any supposed profits. So tell me, what did the shareholders of Pfizer do wrong? Trust the wrong people?

And what happens to the real criminals, the employees that bribed government officials? They lose their jobs? How is this justice?

When someone breaks the law they should be punished. Not drag in some third party who probably had no idea anything illegal was taking place and punish them instead just because they have the deep pockets.

8/13/2012 3:51:11 PM

^Bribery is a victimless crime.

Proper punishment for bribery should cost you more than what you made off the deal.
Of course, the people who received the bribe should be fired but this only works when it's an isolated case.

In more sophisticated cases; however, when a company fires someone, the company can just hire some new peon to replace the person who gets fired to carry out the same task. That is why killing pirates in the Red Sea doesn't work. The people committing the crimes aren't the real criminals even though they are physically committing the crimes. They are replaced at a dime a dozen. It's the organization that puts them to work that are the real criminals.

In America, (rich) people are innocent until proven guilty and it's damn near impossible to prove guilt when someone else commits the crime.

8/13/2012 4:59:05 PM

http://news.yahoo.com/drug-charges-dropped-because-too-much-evidence-182917977.html

More tails of hilarious incompetence from the dea.

tl;dr: they had 2TB of data on a dude, but they were too lazy to look through it all. so instead they let him walk and claimed it was too expensive to store the data.

8/18/2012 1:05:03 AM

^ actually if you did read it, the guy fled to panama which will not extradite him. They dismissed it because no use to hold onto 440,000 physical documents and 2TB of data for a case which will
Never get tried

8/18/2012 2:46:07 PM

What are the best countries to flee to?

8/18/2012 7:10:51 PM