A Department of Homeland Security agent working in Utah is accused of convincing a confidential source to sell the synthetic drug bath salts on the street in exchange for profit from the illegal side hustle.
The FBI arrested the agent, David Cole, on Dec. 6 after the confidential source came forward, worried that the bath salt sales he was directed to do were unlawful. He had been incarcerated on drug charges when he was recruited as a legitimate source and began working for Homeland Security investigators upon his release, the federal complaint states.
But in spring, Cole allegedly approached the source about the separate “arrangement” to sell bath salts, a stimulant that sometimes has hallucinogenic properties. According to the complaint, the source was required to pay Cole or the unnamed agent $5,000 to procure the drugs, then directed to sell them to contacts the source “had in the community.”
Cole or the unnamed agent would meet the source to exchange the bath salts at locations including a local Shake Shack, Panera Bread, Smith’s grocery, Harmons Grocery and a Nike store, the complaint states. Evidence suggests that Cole and the other agent “conspired and worked together to execute this scheme, regardless of which one of them actually appears at the buy location,” the complaint states. At one point, the agents and the source also discussed potentially creating a website to sell bath salts, the complaint states.
Agents believe at least some of the bath salts Cole sold to the source had been procured from product that law enforcement in “a different geographical area” had previously seized, the complaint states.
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