FBI spends millions in complex sting operation

SAN FRANCISCO (AP):

The FBI used millions of dollars, liquor and cigarettes seized in other cases and more than a dozen undercover operatives in an elaborate, seven-year sting operation targeting a San Francisco Chinatown association thought to be a front for a notorious organised crime syndicate.

The agents, posing as honest businessmen and a Mafia figure, spent freely and aggressively offered their targets criminal schemes, leading to the indictment of 29 people, including state Senator Leland Yee, on charges that included money laundering, public corruption and gun trafficking.

The agents' behaviour has already become a central issue in the month-old case, with defence lawyers arguing that the FBI entrapped otherwise honest people by luring them into criminal schemes hatched by the government.

It's an argument numerous suspected terrorists, politicians and others have made when caught in a government sting.

But legal experts say the entrapment defence rarely works. Sting targets have to prove much more than simply the government made them do it. They have to show they weren't predisposed to committing the criminal acts proposed by undercover agents.

Several high-profile terrorism suspects in recent months have argued they were set up by undercover agents who played central roles in helping them plan U.S. attacks that they otherwise would never have intended to carry out.