Former high-ranking DEA agent accused of conspiring to traffic drugs and launder millions of dollars for a Mexican cartel

Channel 3000 News/CNN ^ | December 6, 2025 | CNN Bitter LOSERS

[Diana in Wisconsin]

A former Drug Enforcement Agency agent was indicted on federal charges of conspiring to traffic drugs and launder millions of dollars for a Mexican cartel.

Paul Campo, who was a DEA agent for nearly 25 years, his associate Robert Sensi, are accused in a new indictment unsealed Friday of converting cash into cryptocurrency to buy 220 kilograms of cocaine, worth $5 million, and launder $750,000 in proceeds from drug sales for the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, or CJNG. The State Department designated CJNG as a foreign terrorist organization earlier this year.

Prosecutors in the Southern District of New York allege the men agreed to launder at least $12 million for the cartel.

CNN has attempted to reach Campo, who doesn’t have a attorney identified in court records, for comment.

Authorities allege he and Sensi met with a confidential source working at the direction of US law enforcement posing as a member of the cartel. During a meeting in March at a restaurant in New York, according to the indictment, the men discussed how to move money from the US to Mexico, including by investing in real estate and smuggling cash in bulk.

Campo allegedly told the government source that he had other projects where he helped clients “get their money back,” according to the indictment. Campo allegedly flashed his DEA badge to the confidential source in the meeting, telling him he retired from the DEA years ago.

Campo rose to deputy chief of the DEA’s Office of Financial Operations, putting him in charge of the agency’s money laundering operations, according to his bio at Global Financial Consultants, a company he founded after leaving the agency. He retired from the DEA in 2016. A call and email to the company was not immediately returned Friday. Sensi could not immediately be reached.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

"By October, authorities allege, the confidential source approached the men about participating in a drug deal. He directed Sensi to send over $200,000 in cryptocurrency to the seller for 220 kilograms of cocaine. The government-directed confidential source said he would sell the drugs for $5 million and give Campo and Sensi a 30% cut."

[thegagline]

See what happens when you muscle in on the CIA’s territory?

[PGalt]

HOORAY LEO and federal prosecutors!

[Freedom4US]

Was that wrong? Should he not have done that?

[coloradan]

The punishment for a crime should be worse when a government agent tasked with enforcing the law in question breaks it, compared to when an ordinary citizen breaks it, because the harm to society of a corrupt government agent is greater than the harm of an ordinary criminal.

Here we have a DEA agent breaking drug laws (among others).

[Gay State Conservative]

It shouldn’t be a surprise that there are dirty DEA agents. Some would be dirty simply out of pure greed and depravity,And some would be dirty because they somehow got a “silver or lead” threat from a cartel. Just as Rat Party Maoists are doxxing ICE agents...and their families...these days it’s *absolutely* possible that the cartels have gotten the home addresses of DEA agents and are now threatening their families.

[GOPJ]

See what happens when you muscle in on the CIA’s territory?

Here's a flash - those big drug busts - the ones where a million dollars worth of drugs are 'found' on a ship? Those are cases of one cartel turning in another to their 'contacts' in our drug enforcement.... No chance we have undercover agents in the cartels. Then again if you know that maybe you're not kidding about your above comment....

[brownsfan]

“See what happens when you muscle in on the CIA’s territory?”

Bingo!

[DeplorableTrumpSupporter]

A former Drug Enforcement Agency agent was indicted on federal charges of conspiring to traffic drugs and launder millions of dollars for a Mexican cartel.

I think he thought Drug Enforcement was to help criminals to sell drugs! Common mistakes by Democrats... 😀

[Wuli]

From my perspective, suspect DEA people, are the same as suspect “drug investigation” groups in local police forces.

Human beings, weak in morals and seeking ill gotten gains can work for any organization, even law enforcement; and every law enforcement agency is subject to the possibility that someone in their agency is working with some criminal group.

It goes with the territory and the amounts of money that can be made; from accepting bribes from the criminals, to demanding payoffs from the criminals for silence, to stealing illicit goods from the criminals and the crooked agents selling it themselves, to murdering the criminals they are working with before the criminals can expose the crooked agents.