Informants are an invaluable, often instrumental aspect of criminal investigations, but they do present certain management issues. In the necessarily clandestine world they inhabit, the imposition of institutional control presents unique challenges. Lack of training and communication among law enforcement professionals tend to ensure the same error

The use of informants has been described as the "black hole of law enforcement." Failures in the training of police officers and federal agents in the recruitment and operation of informants has undermined costly long-term investigations, destroyed the careers of prosecutors and law enforcement officers, and caused death and serious injuries to innocent citizens and police. In many cases, the events leading to disaster could have been avoided had the law enforcement agency followed the time-tested procedures examined in this book. Informants, Cooperating Witnesses, and Undercover Investigations: A Practical Guide to Law, Policy, and Procedure, Second Edition covers every aspect of the informant and cooperating witness dynamic—a technique often shrouded in secrecy and widely misunderstood. Quoted routinely in countless newspaper and magazine articles, the first edition of this book was the go-to guide for practical, effective guidance on this controversial yet powerful investigative tool. Extensively updated, topics in this second edition include: Sweeping changes in the FBI and ICE informant and undercover programs New informant recruiting techniques Reverse sting operations Entrapment issues Examination of recent high-profile cases where the misuse of informants resulted in lawsuits and legislation The changing nature of compensation and cooperation agreements Forfeiture, informants, and rewards The management of controlled undercover purchases of evidence Challenges posed by fabricated information, phantom informants and police corruption Witness security measures New whistleblower reward programs Authoritative, scholarly, and based on boots-on-the-ground experience, this book is written by an author who has been a police supervisor, an informant recruiter and handler, an undercover agent, and an attorney. Supported by statutes, case law, and previously unpublished excerpts from law enforcement agency manuals, it is essential reading for every police officer, police manager, prosecutor, police academy trainer, criminal justice professor, and defense attorney. This book is part of the Practical Aspects of Criminal and Forensic Investigations series.

Domestic drug enforcement takes many forms, from the rural patrol officer who happens upon a small-scale mobile “shake and bake” methamphetamine lab during a routine traffic stop, to the city narcotics detective who initiates a low-level buy-bust operation that nets a few hits of crack cocaine on the street corner, to the local, state, and federal agents working in multiagency task forces that coordinate a sting operation that nets thousands of kilos of near-pure cocaine being transported by tractor-trailer. Regardless of the form, there is a high probability that these authorities have exploited access to known offenders and exerted pressure on those individuals to gather inside information on illicit drug sales. These confidential informants provide intelligence on the inner workings of drug operations in exchange for leniency or remuneration, providing a relatively cheap source of intelligence that fuels much of the ongoing war on drugs. In other instances, law enforcement authorities will reach out to members of the criminal underworld who are willing to provide valuable intelligence in exchange for money. Despite the central role of informants in contemporary police operations, little is known about the shadowy relationships among law enforcement, snitches, and offenders. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in the narcotics, homicide, and street-level vice operations in two major metropolitan police departments, Speaking Truth to Power takes readers to the front lines of the war on drugs to unravel this complex web of information exchange.

Completely revised to include updated cases and modern techniques, the second edition of Undercover is still a classic text for all law enforcement personnel. It approaches the topic from three angles: how to handle informants, how to investigate suspects, and how to be an undercover agent.

The explosive memoir of an FBI field operative who has worked more undercover cases than anyone in history. Within FBI field operative circles, groups of people known as “Special” by their titles alone, Michael R. McGowan is an outlier. 10% of FBI Special Agents are trained and certified to work undercover. A quarter of those agents have worked more than one undercover assignment in their careers. And of those, less than 10% of them have been involved in more than five undercover cases. Over the course of his career, McGowan has worked more than 50 undercover cases. In this extraordinary and unprecedented book, McGowan will take readers through some of his biggest cases, from international drug busts, to the Russian and Italian mobs, to biker gangs and contract killers, to corrupt unions and SWAT work. Ghost is an unparalleled view into how the FBI, through the courage of its undercover Special Agents, nails the bad guys. McGowan infiltrates groups at home and abroad, assembles teams to create the myths he lives, concocts fake businesses, coordinates the busts, and helps carry out the arrests. Along the way, we meet his partners and colleagues at the FBI, who pull together for everything from bank jobs to the Boston Marathon bombing case, mafia dons, and, perhaps most significantly, El Chapo himself and his Sinaloa Cartel. Ghost is the ultimate insider's account of one of the most iconic institutions of American government, and a testament to the incredible work of the FBI.