DEA Informant Who Helped Convict Russian Arms Dealer Has Earned $9M for His Work
A U.S. undercover informant has become a multimillionaire, thanks mostly to his work for the Drug Enforcement Administration.
In his most recent case, Carlos Sagastume posed as a member of a Colombian rebel group seeking weapons to fight Americans, the Associated Press reports. His worked helped prosecutors secure a conspiracy conviction last week in their case against alleged Soviet arms merchant Victor Bout.
The U.S. government has paid Sagastume $9 million for his work as an informant over the last 15 years, the story says. The biggest chunk of the money—$7.5 million—was from two rewards for work he did for the Drug Enforcement Administration. He earned another $1.6 million for work on 150 investigations, although some of the money covered his expenses.
Sagastume had turned to drug dealing after serving in Guatemala’s Army, where he helped gather intelligence on guerrilla activists. At Bout’s trial, he testified that he gave up the narcotics trade and contacted the DEA after he was kidnapped by federal police in Mexico. He said he won his freedom with a $60,000 ransom payment.
