![]() ![]() ![]() Related: Arrested While Muslim? The NYPD Wants You…To Be the Next Informant His body was found in a river with a bullet through his head. His parents, who did not know he had been recruited to serve as an informant, say that their son was murdered while working undercover for police to receive a reduced sentence on a drug charge. That’s what happened to Andrew Sadek, a student at North Dakota State College of Science who was caught selling $80 worth of marijuana in 2013. In the most tragic cases, children who otherwise might have been advised by their parents to reject advances by police to become an informant have died as a result of their confidential involvement in criminal cases. Many have been given false assurances by the police or have been dissuaded from seeking legal representation and from informing their parents that they’re serving as an informant. Some are juveniles, occasionally as young as fourteen or fifteen. Related: Coalition Blasts 9/11 Commission Recommendation to Use More InformantsĮvery day, offenders are sent out to perform high-risk police operations with few legal protections. This led to a system with lots of arrests for low-level offenders looking for ways to reduce their harsh sentences. The main reason is the tough mandatory minimum sentences introduced in the 1980s for even relatively minor drug crimes. A 60 Minutes story estimates that 100,000 people are currently working for law enforcement as confidential informants. The number of informants has exploded in the past few decades. Despite their ubiquity, there are surprisingly few rules on how informants are used and in many cases, persons serving as informants are not aware of the rights they surrender or the risks they may encounter when going undercover. By some estimates, up to eighty per cent of all drug cases in the country involve them. Confidential informants are the unseen foot soldiers in the government’s war on drugs. ![]()
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