Audit of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Controls Over Seized and Collected Drugs

Our audit found that, with a few exceptions, DEA procedures generally were appropriate for handling seized and collected drugs, although the implementation of some procedures was not consistent across the offices we analyzed. For example, we found that drug exhibits were not always recorded properly in the Temporary Drug Ledger, which is a formal record of drug exhibits temporarily stored in the DEA field division office. When exhibits are not entered into the ledger properly, or are not entered at all, the risk that drug evidence will be lost increases. This is because the only other records of the transfer to temporary storage are the DEA-12s (Receipt for Cash or Other Items), which we found are often misplaced. We examined a sample of drug exhibits from 2 field DEA divisions, and we were unable to locate DEA-12s for 9 percent (12 of 132) of the exhibits. Gaps in the formal documentation of the chain of custody for drug exhibits can compromise the security of the drugs and jeopardize the government's ability to use the evidence in court proceedings.