Airline informant received thousands from passenger cash seizures

A DEA task force officer said David was free to go, but agents would detain his bag. David asked multiple times if he was being detained, and then walked on the plane with his backpack.

DEA Task Force Officer Nicholas Nimeskern followed David onto the plane and removed his bag without a warrant or probable cause. “So I pulled out my phone and started recording him,” David said. On the video, the officer can be heard saying, “I don’t care about your consent stuff,” when David repeatedly denied the agent’s requests to search his bag.

Nothing was found inside, but David missed his flight.

Inspector General report

The Justice Department Inspector General reopened a decades-long investigation of the Operation Jetway program after seeing David’s video, which was first published by the non-profit Institute for Justice.

“Without the subject, the individual, thinking to immediately use their cell phone to record the event,” said Inspector General Michael Horowitz, “in fact, we clearly wouldn’t have known about it because absent that video, there was no record of the incident.”

When the Office of The Inspector General requested records of David’s search, the DEA responded no records existed. “The DEA wasn’t keeping records of its encounters unless it found cash or drugs,” Horowitz said.

“When we began our investigation and asked for the paperwork, that’s when, months later, they started creating paperwork trying to lay out why they did what they did,” Horowitz added.

The secret airline informant

As part of its investigation in 2023, Atlanta News First Investigates discovered Transportation Security Administration agents and airline employees received informant fees for tipping off the DEA to passengers likely carrying large amounts of cash.

Traveling domestically with any amount of currency is legal in the U.S.; only international travelers are required to declare carrying $10,000 or more in currency. David was not carrying a large amount of cash with him on the flight.

The DOJ Inspector General found out David was stopped because an airline employee paid by the DEA had reported him for buying a last-minute ticket.

‘It turned out that the individual was getting a percentage of the amount seized on multiple occasions over a longer period of time,” Horowitz said.

The IG report showed one airline employee “has received tens of thousands of dollars from the DEA over the past several years for seizures resulting from information [they] provided of travelers with tickets purchased within 48 hours of their flight.”

The Inspector General told Atlanta News First Investigates there was no other evidence of drug trafficking in David’s case, other than his purchase of a last-minute ticket to New York City, where he lives. “Approaching individuals based solely on that basis, without any lead, any other information to suggest they might be a drug courier or money launderer was concerning,” Horowitz said.

Sen. Ossoff inquiry

A draft of the Inspector General’s report landed on the Attorney General’s desk days before a inquiry from Georgia U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, who demanded answers after seeing the Atlanta News First Investigates report featuring David’s video.

“It is a scathing description of serious deficiencies in this program that impact the constitutional rights of my constituents in Georgia,” Ossoff said. “And I don’t know whether without reporting from Atlanta News First that would have come to light.”

Ossoff said he particularly concerned with the informant fees paid to airline employees who were alerting the DEA to passengers without any evidence of criminal activity. “If informants are being paid with confiscated property from searches that the informants triggered with no real evidence, it’s obvious why that’s a potential abuse and a potential violation of civil rights,” Ossoff said.

Plainclothes agents nowhere to be seen at airport

The Nov. 12 directive ordered the immediate suspension of the entire DEA cold consent encounter program nationwide. That directive was revealed publicly only when the Office of Inspector General released its report Nov. 21, 2024.

Atlanta News First Investigates went to dozens of airport gates in Georgia, Washington, D.C., and Louisiana since the directive was issued, and saw no sign of the plainclothes drug agents previously recorded searching passengers at boarding doors.

The DOJ directive does allow the DEA to search suspects of drug trafficking “as part of a pre-planned activity in an ongoing, predicated investigation involving one or more identified targets or criminal networks.”

The directive explicitly bans searches predicated only on tips received from airline employees about last minute ticket purchases, like the one that put David on the DEA search list.

“The receipt of travel information from a confidential source, standing alone, does not constitute the type of predicated, ongoing investigation which will support a consensual encounter,” the Deputy Attorney General wrote.

DEA responds

The DEA had not responded to Atlanta News First Investigates questions or requests for interviews for over a year, after the agency had declined an initial interview request.

After the airport search program was suspended, Atlanta News First Investigates reached out to the agency again by email.

“DEA is relentlessly committed to its core mission: saving American lives,” the agency said. “We regularly review our enforcement efforts and programs to ensure that we are using resources in the best way to fulfill that mission. For the last several months, DEA has been conducting an internal review of its Transportation Interdiction Program, which has been suspended. That review is ongoing. The DEA is committed to executing our mission with integrity and professionalism at every turn.”

Atlanta News First Investigates also reached out to Nimeskern through his primary employer, the Montgomery (Ohio) Police Department.

Police Chief John Crowell responded, “I will check with him, but I doubt he wishes to speak to you.”

If there’s something you would like Atlanta News First Chief Investigator Brendan Keefe to look into, email him directly at brendan.keefe@wanf.com.

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