The Special Operations Division (SOD) is a DEA-led unit, created in 1994, that passes leads drawn from intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a large phone-records database to agents in the field. On Aug. 5, 2013, Reuters reported that SOD training documents told agents to leave the unit out of reports, affidavits, discussions with prosecutors and testimony, and to rebuild each lead through “normal investigative techniques.” The documents called that process “parallel construction.” That is where the public term comes from.
Key takeaways
- SOD was created in 1994 to target Latin American drug cartels and works with about two dozen partner agencies, including the FBI, CIA, NSA, IRS and DHS (Reuters, Aug. 5, 2013).
- Training documents told agents to omit SOD from the case record and recreate the information by other means.
- A former federal judge, defense lawyers and former prosecutors quoted by Reuters called the practice unconstitutional or indefensible; DEA officials called it legal.
- Follow-up reporting showed an IRS manual entry with the same instruction, and the Justice Department said it was reviewing the practice.
- Human Rights Watch's 2018 report found signs the method spread beyond the DEA. Nobody has published a reliable count of cases.
01What the Special Operations Division is
According to Reuters' Aug. 5, 2013 report by John Shiffman and Kristina Cooke, SOD was created in 1994 to go after Latin American drug cartels. It is led by the DEA, but it is not only a DEA operation: Reuters counted about two dozen partner agencies, including the FBI, CIA, NSA, Internal Revenue Service and Department of Homeland Security.
Its job is to move information. Reuters reported that SOD's tips came from overseas NSA intercepts, domestic wiretaps, informants and foreign partners, and that the unit also circulated leads from a DEA telephone-records database known as DICE. A follow-up Reuters report put that database at about 1 billion records, kept for roughly a year (Reuters, Aug. 7, 2013).
02The instruction: leave SOD out, then rebuild
The heart of the Reuters story was not the tips. It was what agents were told to do with them. Per the report, SOD training documents directed agents not to reveal the unit's involvement in investigative reports, affidavits, discussions with prosecutors or courtroom testimony.
Instead, agents were told to use “normal investigative techniques” to recreate the information SOD had provided. The documents called this parallel construction: building a second, presentable investigative trail that runs alongside the real one and appears to stand on its own.
In plain terms
The case is presented as if it began with an independent event. The tip that actually started it never appears in the file.
Reuters also reported that the concealment could keep the true origin hidden not just from defense lawyers but sometimes from prosecutors and judges. One federal prosecutor told Reuters a DEA agent had misled him about where a tip came from in a Florida case, and that he later learned it came through SOD from an NSA intercept.
The reporting shows the instruction and describes how it was used. It does not identify which prosecutions, or how many, were rebuilt this way. Nothing in the public record we have seen gives that number.
03How it looked in practice: the traffic stop
Reuters gave a concrete example from a former federal agent. An SOD tip would identify a particular vehicle at a particular truck stop. Local police would then find a reason to stop the vehicle, and a drug-sniffing dog would search it. The arrest would be documented as a traffic stop that turned up drugs.
The follow-up Reuters report on Aug. 7, 2013 made the same point in an official document. An entry in an IRS manual from 2005 and 2006 told IRS agents to omit references to SOD tips, and Reuters reported that agents could describe a case as beginning with a traffic infraction rather than with an SOD tip. The entry was removed in early 2007, according to the report (Reuters, Aug. 7, 2013).
Stops like these are lawful on their face because of how the Supreme Court has treated pretextual traffic stops. We explain that in our dispatch on Whren and “wall stops.”
04Who said what
Reuters put the practice in front of people who had spent careers in federal court. We paraphrase; the full quotes are in the original report (also available in a reprint).
Critics
- Nancy Gertner, a former federal judge teaching at Harvard Law School, said she had never heard of anything like it and called it “phonying up” investigations.
- James Felman, a Tampa defense lawyer and vice chair of the ABA's criminal justice section, called it outrageous and indefensible.
- Lawrence Lustberg, a New Jersey defense lawyer, said systematic concealment would be blatantly unconstitutional.
- Henry Hockeimer, a former federal prosecutor, said it amounted to gaming the system.
- Finn Selander, a former DEA agent, compared it to money laundering: working backward to make the trail clean.
Defenders
- Two senior DEA officials, speaking without being named, defended the practice as legal and said it was used almost daily.
- In the Aug. 8 follow-up, DEA officials said it was necessary to protect confidential sources and investigative methods.
- A Justice Department spokesman declined to comment on the original story.
In Congress, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) said that if agents were recreating a trail, that was wrong. Sen. Rand Paul said he was troubled by an effort to cover up a program that investigates Americans (Reuters, Aug. 7, 2013).
05The follow-up week
- Aug. 5, 2013
The original report
Reuters reveals SOD, the concealment instruction and the term “parallel construction.” Reuters.
- Aug. 7, 2013
The IRS manual
John Shiffman and David Ingram report the IRS manual entry and its removal, the DICE database's size, and that the practice was under Justice Department review. Reuters, republished by Equipo Nizkor.
- Aug. 8, 2013
Defense lawyers move
Reuters reports that defense lawyers will seek access to the hidden evidence, that the Justice Department is reviewing parallel construction, and that DEA officials maintain it is legal. Reuters, republished by Equipo Nizkor.
The reporting we cite does not say what the Justice Department's review concluded, and we have not seen its results published.
06What Human Rights Watch added
Five years later, Human Rights Watch published “Dark Side: Secret Origins of Evidence in US Criminal Cases” (Jan. 9, 2018). The research ran from April 2016 to October 2017 and drew on:
- 95 federal and state criminal cases;
- 24 interviews with defense lawyers, current and former officials and civil society experts;
- several hundred pages of government documents, including FOIA releases, with requests sent to 22 federal agencies in January 2017.
HRW found signs that agencies beyond the DEA use the method, including the FBI, ICE, ATF and IRS, and that it reaches minor cases as well as major trafficking ones. It reported that dozens of published court opinions describe “whisper” or “wall” stops, where police make a pretextual traffic stop after a tip.
The sources HRW interviewed disagreed on how often it happens. A former intelligence-community lawyer described it as a small minority of cases; a DEA official and a former SOD agent described it as routine. HRW argued the practice violates the right to a fair trial and undercuts disclosure duties under Brady v. Maryland, and recommended that Congress require disclosure of the full origins of an investigation to defendants.
HRW also examined Hemisphere, a DEA program that obtained AT&T call records. We cover that program in a separate dispatch.
07Why the name still matters
The 2013 reporting gave anyone questioning a case's origin something concrete to cite: a government training document, a name for the method, and former officials speaking on the record. The phrase moved from a DEA document into the news, into human rights research and into this site's name.
What the 2013 reporting did not do is prove that any specific case was built this way. That is the discipline we hold ourselves to. We describe the documented pattern, cite who documented it, and in our case files ask only the questions the public record supports. Read the wider record on our homepage's Exposed timeline, and the legal analysis in Is Parallel Construction Legal?
08Frequently asked questions
What is the DEA Special Operations Division?
A DEA-led unit created in 1994 to target Latin American drug cartels. According to Reuters, it works with about two dozen partner agencies and passes leads from intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a phone-records database to agents in the field.
Where does the term parallel construction come from?
Reuters reported on Aug. 5, 2013 that SOD training documents used the term for the process of recreating an SOD tip through normal investigative techniques, so the case appears to begin with an independent event.
Did the DEA admit to parallel construction?
DEA officials who spoke to Reuters without being named defended the practice as legal, said it was used almost daily, and said it was necessary to protect sources and methods. The Justice Department said it was reviewing the practice.
Is parallel construction limited to the DEA?
Human Rights Watch's 2018 report found indications that other agencies, including the FBI, ICE, ATF and IRS, have used similar methods. An IRS manual entry reported by Reuters in 2013 also told agents to omit SOD tips.
Does the 2013 reporting show which cases were built this way?
No. It documents the instruction and describes how it worked, but it does not identify specific prosecutions or give a count. We do not claim any specific case used parallel construction unless a court, the government or primary documents establish it.
Know a case that started with a stop that seemed too lucky?
Send us the court, the docket number and the filings. We build every case file from public records and correct our own work. If you are the person charged, talk to your own lawyer before sharing anything about your case with anyone, including us. Messages to us are not privileged.
09Sources
Every fact in this dispatch comes from the documents below. If you spot an error, tell us and we'll correct it on this page.
- Reuters, “U.S. directs agents to cover up program used to investigate Americans,” John Shiffman and Kristina Cooke, Aug. 5, 2013 (reprint, Bangor Daily News)
- Reuters, “IRS manual detailed DEA’s use of hidden intel evidence,” John Shiffman and David Ingram, Aug. 7, 2013 (republished by Equipo Nizkor)
- Reuters, “U.S. defense lawyers to seek access to DEA hidden intelligence evidence,” David Ingram and John Shiffman, Aug. 8, 2013 (republished by Equipo Nizkor)
- Human Rights Watch, “Dark Side: Secret Origins of Evidence in US Criminal Cases”, Jan. 9, 2018
- Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963)
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Public education, not legal advice. We are not attorneys. If you are facing charges, talk to your lawyer before sharing anything about your case with anyone, including us.