Utahn working with DEA tried to tip off suspect that phone was bugged, prosecutors say

SALT LAKE CITY – A Utahn who worked on a drug case with federal investigators is accused of trying to warn a suspect about a wiretap, a rare occurrence that experts say can jeopardize several investigations and put officers in danger.

Jose Araujo was a contractor working with the Drug Enforcement Administration, Andrew Choate, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. Multiple sources have confirmed to KSL that Araujo was working as a translator.

Prosecutors allege Araujo tipped off a “known associate” of the suspect on Sept. 1 “for the purpose of having the associate inform the target that the phone was being monitored,” according to recent filings in U.S. District Court.

Araujo has not yet entered pleas to felony charges of disclosing a wiretap and obstructing justice. Messages left with his defense attorney and at publicly listed phone numbers for Araujo were not immediately returned.

The Drug Enforcement Administration has a longstanding practice of hiring interpreters to listen to conversations being secretly recorded, often for drug cases. But those contract employees rarely tip someone off about eavesdropping authorities, said Gregory Rogers, a former FBI narcotics agent.

“Not being all melodramatic, people can get killed if wires get burned while they’re up and running,” he said. “For law enforcement, it’s the ultimate betrayal.”

Court documents are short on details, but prosecutors’ decision to file charges in the case suggests the disclosure had a significant effect.

“This obviously hurt them badly. Because none of this comes out, and they don’t prosecute anybody, if they thought they could still stay up on the wiretap,” Rogers said. Still, it doesn’t preclude investigators from building a case based on evidence already collected, he added.

Federal prosecutors have begun notifying defense attorneys on other cases that may be affected, KSL has learned, but it’s not clear whether any are jeopardized.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office declined further comment.

A spokesman for the DEA’s Denver-area division, which includes Utah, deferred comment to the FBI, which investigated the alleged leak and also declined to speak about the case.

Obtaining a warrant to wiretap can take thousands of hours of work by a team of investigators, and judges typically don’t approve the invasive surveillance techniques for small, street-level drug cases, said Rogers.

Investigators who’ve received court permission to bug phones generally listen in for months at a time. They’re often trying to identify a suspected trafficker’s wider network, Rogers said, along with details about how meth, fentanyl or other drugs are making their way to the Beehive State.

Such organizations often have ties to cartels in Mexico, said John Huber, former U.S. Attorney for Utah.

“The movies and tv shows they make about these people have a semblance of truth to them. These are dangerous groups,” Huber said. “It’s a big deal that it looks like a third-party contractor, likely a linguist, shared confidential, law-enforcement sensitive information with – if not a target – an associate of the target of the investigation.”

If suspects are clued into authorities’ spying, they may do something reckless or dangerous, Huber said.

“Certainly, law enforcement agents, federal agents, could be at risk of personal harm, if the target of their investigation knows that they’re watching,” he told KSL.

Huber, who stepped down from the job earlier this year, said he didn’t recall the case the interpreter was working on, noting he supervised attorneys working on hundreds of investigations at a time.

While such leaks are rare, similar cases have occurred across the country.

When Rogers was a federal prosecutor in Texas, he said a linguist there faced criminal charges after telling one of her family members – who was under investigation – that authorities were listening in.

Earlier this year, a California translator working for a company contracting with the DEA was charged with intentionally disclosing a wiretap.

Prosecutors said she recognized a friend’s significant other who was under surveillance and then told her friend. The suspects, tied to an alleged drug-trafficking operation, threw away the bugged phones, delaying the investigation, prosecutors said in announcing the charges.

Those who tip off friends, family members or others they know aren’t as great a concern as contractors who sell information for their own benefit, Rogers said. Translators work on other sorts of investigations, so it’d raise questions about whether the employee took money in other cases.

Araujo is scheduled to go on trial in February. A conviction for the obstruction charge carries up to 20 years in federal prison and the disclosure charge carries up to five years.

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