Drug agents mishandled seized cash

Drug Enforcement Administration agents routinely disregarded agency rules on the handling of seized cash, jeopardizing hundreds of millions of dollars taken in drug raids, a Justice Department review found.

In an audit published Friday, Justice Department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine examined thousands of seizures between October 2004 and November 2006.

Fine's report states that drug agents rarely counted the cash they took, often didn't provide receipts for seized money, rarely recorded the seizures in agency ledgers and often didn't ask their colleagues to witness their counting and handling of the money.

DEA agents recorded more than 16,000 seizures for nearly $616 million in the period surveyed, the report states.

"Cash seized by the DEA is at risk because of the DEA's failure to consistently implement and document controls over the seized cash," Fine's

spokeswoman, Cynthia Schnedar, said in an e-mail.

The lack of internal controls over the seized cash leads to accusations of theft by the agents, the report states.

The DEA opened internal investigations of 33 agents and SAC's between 2004 and 2006, Fine's report states. In 11 of those cases, the agents didn't follow agency guidelines on handling, processing or disposing of the evidence, the report states.