Episode Details

Former Drug Enforcement Administration supervisory agent Nathan Koen was sentenced to 135 months, or 11 years and three months, in federal prison on May 11, 2022, after pleading guilty to accepting bribes from a major drug trafficker in exchange for providing sensitive law enforcement information and protection. Koen, who had worked for the DEA since 2002 and served as a group supervisor in Little Rock, Arkansas, was accused of helping a trafficking organization avoid detection while it distributed significant quantities of methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin, fentanyl, and marijuana across multiple states. Federal prosecutors originally charged him in November 2019 with bribery and conspiracy to distribute controlled substances, but the drug conspiracy charge was dismissed after he pleaded guilty to bribery in August 2021. During sentencing, U.S. District Judge Brian Miller determined that Koen had accepted payments to facilitate a drug conspiracy involving between 15 and 45 kilograms of methamphetamine. Investigators established that the trafficker, who had initially developed a relationship with Koen while acting as a DEA informant, subsequently resumed large-scale drug distribution while paying the federal agent for protection. Before cooperating with the FBI, the trafficker had provided Koen with approximately $31,500 in bribes, effectively turning a federal narcotics investigator into an asset for the criminal organization he had been entrusted to combat.

The corruption scheme unraveled in 2018 when the FBI began investigating Koen and enlisted the cooperation of the drug trafficker who had been paying him. On December 3, 2018, investigators arranged a controlled bribe payment in Las Vegas, supplying the informant with $9,000 in cash and recording equipment. Koen met the informant near the Bellagio hotel before accompanying him to the Paris Las Vegas hotel, where they entered a bathroom away from surveillance cameras and the informant placed the money inside Koen's backpack. During their recorded conversation, Koen asked whether the payment was worthwhile and warned the trafficker to dispose of his phones and change his address because he anticipated that authorities would soon execute a search warrant at his residence. Federal agents arrested Koen after he returned to Arkansas that same day, and he admitted accepting bribes. Prosecutors condemned his actions as a profound betrayal of public trust, emphasizing that he had used his position to protect a criminal enterprise responsible for distributing enormous quantities of dangerous narcotics. DEA Administrator Anne Milgram and FBI officials similarly criticized Koen for placing personal financial interests ahead of his responsibilities as a federal law enforcement officer. In addition to his prison sentence, Judge Miller imposed two years of supervised release, bringing an end to a corruption prosecution that exposed how a senior DEA agent had exploited his authority to assist the very drug traffickers he was supposed to investigate.


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