A report released by the U.S. Justice Department has revealed that several officials from the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) engaged in "sex parties" with prostitutes paid for by Colombian drug cartels.
The report released by the office of the Inspector General on Thursday said that these parties were held at government-leased quarters over a period of several years and appeared to date back to at least 2005, reported CBS News.
The report said that although some of the DEA agents participating in these parties denied it yet information in the case file suggested that they should have known the prostitutes were paid with cartel funds.
It also revealed that foreign officer claimed to have provided protection for the agents' weapons and property during the parties.
The full extent of the officials' misconduct is however, not known because the agency dragged its feet and withheld or redacted information during the probe.
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The revelation was made through a series of interviews conducted in 2009 and 2010 in which Colombian police officers told the DEA's Office of Professional Responsibility that several agents had solicited prostitutes and engaged in other misconduct.
Also, many officials engaged in high-risk sexual behavior, raising the possibility that DEA equipment and information also may have been compromised, the report said.
Seven out of 10 agents, who were accused, admitted attending such parties with prostitutes and were suspended for periods ranging from two to 10 days. One agent was cleared of all wrongdoing.
The Office of Professional Responsibility said that it believed that agents' conduct constituted a local management issue and not a security risk.
