So one of the first tests of his veracity has to be verifying that he did, in fact, work for those agencies.

Well, if a U.S. judge is to believed, there is no doubt that Vega was an in-demand inside player for the U.S. government.

In prior stories, Narco News has reported that leaks of classified information from the U.S. Embassy in Bogotá were allegedly discovered during an operation targeting Colombian narco-traffickers that was codenamed Calli-Man, which was overseen by Miami-based DEA Supervisor David Tinsley.

In the wake of reporting the leaks, Tinsley found himself the target of an internal DEA investigation that resulted in his suspension and eventual dismissal from his job.

Tinsley sought to get his job back, claiming the charges against him were bogus. He brought a claim of wrongful termination before a Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) judge, who, in April 2004, ruled in his favor and ordered the DEA to reinstate him — with back pay, plus interest.

(MSPB is an administrative court that handles cases involving federal employment issues, including cases of alleged retaliation against whistleblowers.)

The judge’s ruling in that case includes some very specific details about the activities of Vega, who in his other life was a high-profile fashion photographer. Those details confirm that the DEA, FBI and CIA all were utilizing Vega in operations targeting narco-traffickers in Colombia.

Vega told Narco News that while carrying out his complex missions for multiple U.S. agencies, he came across evidence of serious corruption within both DEA’s Bogotá office as well as within U.S. Customs – which has since become part of the Department of Homeland Security.

The judge’s ruling proves that Vega was in a position to run across that corruption. Whether the proof of that corruption will surface is still a story yet to unfold.

From the MSPB judge’s April 20, 2004, ruling in the Tinsley case:

… Baruch Vega has been a source of information for several federal law enforcement agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Customs Service and the DEA. …

… Additionally the return of Mr. [Orlando Sanchez] Cristancho to the United States was an extremely high-visibility operation within DEA.

Witness after witness testified that Mr. Cristancho was a major Colombian drug kingpin and that his surrender to the DEA was a major coup for the Miami District. The principals involved had numerous meetings, and the appellant [Tinsley] coordinated Mr. Cristancho's surrender with numerous authorities within and without DEA to include the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Indeed, the appellant used the CIA to bring Mr. Cristancho to the chartered aircraft surreptitiously, without going through Panamanian airport security or customs. The appellant simply made no attempt to conceal the use of the chartered aircraft. And, an Assistant U.S. Attorney and various DEA agents from Group 9 were at the Fort Lauderdale airport to greet the plane.

[NOTE: The use of the chartered plane at a cost of $23,200 was one of the main charges brought against Tinsley to fire him; DEA claimed it wasn't authorized; the judge disagreed.]

… The appellant [Tinsley] testified that, at the request of the FBI, he wanted the bare minimum of a paper trail for Mr. Vega. Both the DEA and FBI used Vega as a confidential source. The FBI specified that Vega would be a "non-testifier.” That is, he would never be used to testify in criminal trials. This status was necessary because Vega was called a “FCI-CI” or Foreign Counterintelligence Service Confidential Informant, who had been brought in by the CIA. As the appellant put it, “I'm having my agents cut him out every chance they can. I don't want him documented. I don't want him in our Case File any more than we have to.”

The trips to Panama at issue here were confidential source recruiting trips. The plan was for Mr. Vega to “introduce” SA Castillo [a DEA agent working under Tinsley] to drug traffickers and then to get out of there, so he would be in no position to have to testify regarding what conversations, if any, took place. For that reason, it was the appellant's [Tinsley's] judgment that few DEA-6s [reports] were required regarding Mr. Vega because Vega was a non-testifier, and, moreover, his activities did not yield investigative leads. And, as stated previously, at least one classified DEA-6 was prepared and was kept under lock and key in the Miami SAC's [special agent in charge’s] safe in order to safeguard the information contained therein….

So, it appears that Vega was no run-of-the-mill informant, but rather a coveted asset who played a critical role in a number of high-stakes U.S. government operations targeting Colombia.

That’s the picture as we can see it for now. But that picture is still developing.

Link: Judge’s ruling in Tinsley case