One Homeland Security special agent in Utah arrested by the FBI for allegedly selling illegal drugs
Dec 11, 2024, 6:00 AM | Updated: 7:43 am
FILE - The U.S. Department of Homeland Security sign sits at the headquarters in Washington, Dec. 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File) Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS
(AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)
SALT LAKE CITY — One Homeland Security special agent in Utah was arrested by the FBI for allegedly selling Alpha-PVP, also known on the street as bath salts.
Five days ago, Utah Homeland Security special agent David Cole was arrested.
According to court documents, Cole was charged with conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance. He allegedly worked with a confidential informant, who was a known drug dealer.
The dealer helped arrange the sale of bath salts for 30 weeks, generating up to $300,000 in profits. The unnamed informant has been cooperating with the FBI since March.
former FBI agent Greg Rogers said there must have been a sense of desperation or some underlying motive for Cole to turn to crime, particularly in trusting an informant.
“When you’re doing illegal activity like that with a career criminal for an informant he owns you. He has an ace in his pocket. You know he’s basically free from ever getting prosecuted again. Because if he ever gets arrested for anything. Anything. The first thing he’s going to say is ‘hey I got these Feds I’m selling Bath salts with. ‘”
Rogers spent much of his career in narcotics and also helped bring down an FBI agent involved in similar criminal activity. In that case the agent he helped take down was in massive financial debt while also going through a divorce.
The DEA said bath salts mimic the effects of cocaine, meth and ecstasy. A photo of it on the DEA’s website really does look like epsom bath salts.
One notorious story involving bath salts was back in 2012 when a 31-year-old man in Miami ripped his clothes off and bit off parts of another man’s face while high.
This story initially inaccurately said two Homeland Security special agents were arrested. It has since been updated to say that only David Cole was arrested.
Related: US drug control agency will move to reclassify marijuana in a historic shift
