How do drug stings work

Individuals — often those down on their luck and in need of money — are targeted and arrested for conspiracy to commit a robbery — despite any evidence that these targeted individuals have ever committed crimes like this before.

In another troubling example, a few years after Hurricane Katrina, the New Orleans Police Department placed an unlocked vehicle stocked with food, cigarettes, and alcohol — with its windows rolled down — across the street from a homeless encampment. Those who entered the car were arrested and charged with felony burglary of a vehicle, a crime that carried up to 12 years in prison.

There are too many such cases, where police create elaborate schemes using significant public resources to tempt individuals who posed no public safety threat prior to the operation. The law states that police may not entrap individuals by inducing crime, but the line between presenting someone the opportunity to commit a crime and inducing them to commit a crime is murky.

Would Jesse have ever sold drugs had his new friend not suggested he do so? Would homeless individuals in New Orleans have broken into a car had the police not placed it there with food? Police may use bait cars "decoy cars" or "gotcha cars" when they know of a hot spot of car theft and the type of car that is most often stolen. Types of bait-car operations range from the simple, when a car is left parked and staked out by police, to the elaborate, when the car is fitted out with tracking devices, or it automatically locks when the thief is inside.

Police commonly employ professional thieves and current or former offenders in elaborate sting operations, especially those targeting fencing and corruption. In simpler operations, juveniles are often used as surrogates or "minor decoys" for police by entering stores to buy cigarettes or alcohol. They differ from police informers, who are used because of their skill and knowledge of complex crimes.

Juveniles are used because of their special status as juveniles. When police use much deception, they are more likely to accompany it with surveillance. This is because, when it comes to prosecution, it will be necessary to demonstrate that the offender was not entrapped into committing the crime see below on entrapment. In the early days of stings, surveillance was composed of an informer or undercover officer "wearing a wire" to record conversations, to bug a meeting place, or to conduct phone taps.

However, the conditions and procedures for making legal phone taps and recording phone conversations are complex, and vary from state to state. Modern sting operations, especially of complex bribery and fraud cases, are commonly accompanied by voluminous videotaped records of transactions and conversations, increasingly made by miniature cameras the informer or undercover officer wears.

These videos of offenders actually "caught in the act" have been very effective in the courtroom in gaining convictions, especially if they have been obtained by officers well versed in the legal and operational procedures for obtaining video evidence. Police Department used a sting operation to obtain information to help analyze the problem of street drug dealing, rather than to arrest offenders. This enabled them to focus on area redevelopment and other responses that were successful in reducing drug sales—an innovative combination of the investigatory function of stings with the aim of crime reduction rather than the "gotcha" of mass arrests.

The majority of sting operations fall under the investigative category. The aims may be to penetrate a criminal gang, collect evidence, and identify and arrest offenders. Police will conduct a sting essentially to uncover a suspected extensive or complex fraud involving many people, usually those who hold offices of trust in a community or government organization.

By , they had targeted specific members of the House of Representatives and one senator. A number of politicians resigned, several were arrested, and a number of convictions followed. The local and national media publicized the sting extensively, and it is now part of U. Officers were able to read millions of messages in "real time" describing murder plots, mass drug import plans and other schemes.

In total, some 9, police officers around the world were involved in the sting. Calvin Shivers of the FBI's Criminal Investigative Division said the operation had enabled police agencies to "turn the tables on criminal organisations", with intelligence gathered preventing murders and a number of other crimes.

Statements from law enforcement agencies did not name any of those arrested in the sting. In Australia, people were arrested including members of outlaw motorcycle gangs, mafia groups, Asian crime syndicates, and serious and organised crime groups. Mr Morrison said the sting, which was called Operation Ironside, was "a watershed moment in Australian law enforcement history".

The FBI is expected to present more details later on Tuesday. Europol's deputy executive director Jean-Philippe Lecouffe described the operation as an "exceptional success". The agency did not break down the arrests in each country, but local officials said they included 70 people in Sweden and 49 in the Netherlands, according to Reuters news agency. Linda Staaf, the Swedish police's head of intelligence, said the operation had helped to prevent more than 10 planned murders in Sweden.

Australian police arrest and confiscate. The man who accidentally helped the FBI. Sting operations are legal ways to get a suspect to break the law. Our Fort Worth criminal defense attorneys at The Clark Law Firm take a strong stance against the practice of sting operations.

Therefore, we urge you to reach out to us online or by calling if you ended up on the wrong side of the law, regardless of how it happened. You are innocent until proven guilty. Let us fight to maintain your innocence!