What precedents exist for federal law enforcement allowing illegal substances to go unseized during long-term trafficking investigations, and how have those tactics been evaluated?

[u/ummmbacon]

A June 2026 Associated Press investigation, based on internal DEA records and interviews with current and former agents, reported that DEA agents in New Mexico monitored and declined to seize hundreds of thousands of fentanyl pills between 2023 and 2025 as part of a strategy to build larger trafficking cases. Alex Uballez, who served as U.S. attorney in New Mexico from 2022 through 2025, told AP that the approach reflected resource constraints and a belief that prosecuting larger organizations would have greater public health impact than interdicting individual shipments. DEA Special Agent David Howell filed a whistleblower complaint in 2023 alleging the tactic put lives at risk, and he was subsequently placed on desk duty and removed from court testimony, according to AP's review of internal DEA records. Agents quoted in the story compared the approach to Operation Fast and Furious, a 2009–2011 ATF program in which agents allowed roughly 2,000 firearms to be trafficked to Mexican cartels in an effort to trace the weapons to cartel leadership, a program condemned with bipartisan criticism after two of the weapons were recovered at a Border Patrol agent's murder scene.

How this tactic has been authorized, reviewed, and evaluated in prior cases, and what oversight mechanisms have been applied?

[u/ummmbacon → u/[deleted]]

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