Now DEA in Colombia prostitution investigation

GlobalPost

For anyone enthralled by the illicit sexual exploits of US servicemen, it’s been quite a season.

Remember Colombia? Ahead of an official visit by President Barack Obama, first the Secret Service, and then the military were implicated in a prostitute scandal.

Now, agents from the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) are being investigated for allegedly hiring prostitutes, also in April, also in Colombia, CBS News reports.

"The Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General (DOJ-OIG) is investigating allegations about potential misconduct by Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) personnel in Colombia, unrelated to the Cartagena hotel Secret Service incident," DOJ spokesman Jay Lerner said in a statement to CBS.

The news report adds that the DEA, which unlike Obama’s Secret Service is permanently stationed in Colombia, will investigate the situation.

“It’s disturbing that we may be uncovering a troubling culture that spans more than one law enforcement agency,” Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the top Republican on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, told the Associated Press.

That AP story mentions "two or more" agents suspected of hiring prostitutes. The allegations come after a dozen Secret Service officers and supervisors and 12 other US military personnel have been accused of paying for sex in Colombia — illegal in most of the US, but permitted in parts of Colombia.

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