Juarez Vice
One of the recurring plotlines of the old Miami Vice series was Crockett and Tubbs investigating a murderous dope-running dirtbag, only to find out he was secretly an informant protected by some branch of the federal government. At least I remember it as a recurring plotline; that was like twenty-two years ago so it may have just been one episode.
Anyway, the Wash Times has uncovered a chilling real-life example of this Vice plotline in Juarez and done a two-part series on it. Seems an ICE-protected informant was continuing his brutal work as an enforcer for the Juarez cartel, killing and burying a dozen people at a Juarez charnel house that sounds like something you'd find in Fallujah. Dude even apaprently tried to kill a DEA agent and his family, and DEA complained, and things got all interagency-slapfight after that.
It's a huge ethical dilemma: the very act of offering immunity to an informant is a moral compromise, and a necessary one to gather information both for investigation and for prosecution. It's not just drug dealers--any violent criminal or terror enterprise can be taken down the same way. And it's not just individuals, it works on a large scale with nations as well.
It's a fallen and corrupt world we have to live in, and enforcing our own security isn't always a glorious or morally satisfying endeavor. Most of these decisions, by their nature, have to be reached out of the spotlight and without public guidance as to their legitimacy.
Was this really necessary? Based on what the Times has said, it would be hard to convince me it was. The Juarez cartel is a big, bloody deal. They've killed hundreds or thousands, and they employ a whole army of thugs and killers like this fellow Lalo. I consider it a terrible threat to Mexican stability and American interests. We're right to pursue it and cripple it, and we're justified in some latitude in how we do so. I wish I could hear ICE's side of this, but we probably never will. And without hearing their side I'm reluctant to give full voice to the revulsion their enabling of this sadistic murderer makes me feel.