While the initial introductions can be nerve-wracking, it's often not until the undercover agent's work begins to spur arrests that things get really dangerous, because the criminals start to wonder who's feeding the police information. This is called "charging around" specific criminal acts in order to avoid forcing the CI to testify in court, which could threaten their safety and make them useless as an informant in the future.Īccording to The Guardian, that means the danger to individual undercover agents grows steadily the longer they work. Fitzgerald in his book " Informants and Undercover Investigations," confidential informants are also often immunized against any charges stemming from criminal activities they engage in that are observed by the undercover officer. Without a CI to make those introductions, an undercover agent would have to start at the very bottom of an organization or group and slowly make their way up, adding months or years to the time frame.Īs noted by author Dennis G. This is usually someone already involved in the criminal activity being investigated who has been arrested and offered a deal: that is, help the agent go undercover in exchange for reduced or dropped charges. While some undercover operations begin with a simple membership fee (undercover FBI agent Bob Hamer told Vice he began his investigation into one group by paying $35 to join up) most of the time, the agent working undercover needs a confidential informant, or CI, to make introductions.
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