Utah Department of Homeland Security officer arrested and accused of selling bath salts

A Department of Homeland Security agent working in Utah is accused of convincing a confidential source to sell synthetic drug bath salts on the street in exchange for profit from the illegal side business.

The FBI arrested Agent David Cole on December 6 after a confidential source came forward who feared that the bath salts he was contracting to sell were illegal. He was incarcerated on drug charges when he was recruited as a legitimate informant and began working for Department of Homeland Security investigators after his release, the federal complaint said.

According to court documents, Cole and another agent, who was not named in the complaint, are estimated to have made “approximately $150,000 to $300,000 in illicit proceeds” from the operation.

The initial recruitment by the confidential source for Homeland Security was accurate, the complaint states. Other agents were involved in his recruitment and day-to-day operations, and he participated in “legitimate, successful drug buys involving individuals who were purchasing drugs illegally.”

But in the spring, Cole allegedly contacted the source about the separate “arrangement” to sell bath salts, a stimulant that sometimes has hallucinogenic properties. According to the complaint, the source had to pay Cole or the unnamed agent $5,000 to obtain the drugs and was then instructed to sell them to contacts the source “had in the community.”

The agents allowed the source to keep the estimated $10,000 he would sell the drugs for, the complaint says.

According to the complaint, this arrangement occurred once or twice a week in Utah along with seemingly legitimate drug buy operations coordinated with other Department of Homeland Security officials.

Cole or the unnamed agent would meet the source to exchange the bath salts at locations such as a local Shake Shack, Panera Bread, Smith’s Grocery, Harmons Grocery and a Nike store, the complaint states.

However, during the bath salts operation, none of the agents arrested anyone who bought the drugs, the confidential source told investigators, and they did not give the source recording devices or other equipment to collect information about the buyers.

The source also noted that neither Cole nor the other agent appeared to keep track of the amount of bath salts sold and all communication between the source, Cole and the other agent occurred via Signal, an end-to-end encrypted text messaging app.

In late October, the source met with FBI investigators to report on the bath salts “scheme,” the complaint says. At that point, the FBI began monitoring eight bath salt purchases involving either Cole or the other agent.

There is evidence that Cole and the other agent “conspired and worked together to carry out this plan, regardless of which of them actually showed up at the purchase location,” the complaint says. At one point, the agents and the source also discussed the possible creation of a website to sell bath salts, the complaint states.

The confidential source cooperated with the FBI “for financial reasons” and “out of fear for his personal safety” if he continued to follow orders from Cole and the other agent, the complaint says.

FBI agents executed search warrants on the two and their homes, government vehicles, work phones, Homeland Security cubicles and a safe on Dec. 4 and 5. They said they found evidence to support the source’s accounts, including more than $67,000 in cash and what appeared to be even more bath salts.

Agents believe that at least some of the bath salts Cole sold to Source came from products that law enforcement had previously seized in “another geographic area,” the complaint said.

Cole was arrested on charges of conspiracy to distribute – and possession with intent to distribute – a controlled substance. He first appeared in court on Monday, after which his lawsuit was unsealed. He is scheduled to appear before U.S. Magistrate Judge Dustin B. Pead on Friday for a detention hearing.

Cole and the unnamed agent were not terminated as employees of Homeland Security Investigations, but their credentials were suspended, the complaint says.

Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Wyn Hornbuckle, deputy director of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Public Affairs, declined to comment on the case Tuesday, citing ongoing prosecutions.