The use of Confidential Human Sources

The DEA, along with HSI and FBI, use Confidential Human Sources to target and entrap persons into indictments for extradition. CHS persons can make up to several million dollars a year on often tainted prosecutions. The DEA alone spends several hundred million dollars a year on CHS information and they are often former or current drug dealers who are never polygraphed or challenged in any way unless they testify at trial. CHS persons are different than the large pool of cooperating witnesses which are often co-workers who turn in everyone they knew for a chance at a lower sentence. CHS information is called Giglio material and has to be turned over by the Government. However, the Government will often refuse and thus the attorney must be aware of the use of CHS persons and get that information accordingly including their prior criminal history and all information in what is called a DEA 5 file kept on the informant. If you were entrapped by a CHS make sure you have an attorney that knows how to proceed. Mr. Bailey was hired as a consulting expert on one such case in Houston, Texas, in August of 2025, and after requesting specific information on the CHS the case was quickly dismissed.

Current Movements in Extradition

In the one year since President Trump took office several countries have stated they will resume extraditions to the United States. The two most notable are Honduras and Costa Rica. Extradition cases generally go to New York, Miami, Sherman or Los Angeles/San Diego. The reason for Sherman is because it is mostly a white non-diverse jury pool for which one prosecutor bragged “we can get longer sentences here.” Thus, in 2026, the number of extraditions are likely to increase along with increased targeting of individuals in Central and South America. Venezuela is likely to be extraditing persons soon additionally. While there is no way to find out if there is a pending indictment for a person not in custody, if you think you might be targeted for prior drug activity it is best to contact an attorney who can best advise you on how to minimize or negate the risk of being extradited.

New rules of the game

With the change in administration in the United States there has been a lot of activity regarding extraditions to the United States. Mexico has sent a batch of 29 high-level narcotic traffickers to the US in the last week. Additionally, Attorney General Bondi put out a memorandum on February 5, 2025, which stated two principles. First, the US would focus on high-level traffickers instead of the low-level workers which has been the pattern for the last forty years. Second, the memo indicated that foreign persons would be sent back to their own country to serve their sentence. Although there is a treaty called the Council of Europe Treaty that allows for the early return to home countries of foreign citizens from the US. However, several countries are not part of this treaty, including Colombia. The memo itself does not outline how the principle is going to become practice, but the memo is attached as is this link to countries who participate in the Council of Europe treaty.

Countries who participate in the Council of Europe treaty

Memorandum by the Attorney General of the United States