A former informant to the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has filed a lawsuit against them for allegedly failing to compensate him adequately.
Carlos Toro, once an official in the Columbian Medellin cartel, spent over 25 years assisting the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) building cases against many of the world’s most notorious drug traffickers.
As the Huffington Post reports, the suit claims that Toro has “suffered and continues to suffer financial hardship,” due to failed payments from the DEA, despite an oral agreement in 1986 regarding his payment. They allegedly only reimbursed him for expenses incurred on the job.
He is asking for a judgment of $5 million, with interest, costs and legal fees.
Toro was recruited in 1986 to provide intelligence as to the inner workings of the cartel. His work helped dismantle one of the most powerful drug trafficking syndicates of the time.
Toro also claims the DEA has failed to deliver on other promises, such as helping him obtain legal status in the U.S., which he does not have despite having lived in the states since the 1960’s. He has only been able to remain in the U.S. on the condition that his assistance to the DEA continues. This finally reached a head earlier this year when Toro required urgent medical care, but had little savings and no access to healthcare benefits as a non-citizen.
Criminal lawyer and professor at Loyola Law School told the Huffington Post:
“The whole world of informant use is built on fuzzy ethics, the toleration of hypocrisy, inequitable treatment and often coercion,” Natapoff said. “So that is a tricky world to ask people to do the right thing.”
Read the full story here.
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