{"id":4636,"date":"2022-08-18T23:46:11","date_gmt":"2022-08-18T17:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/?p=4636"},"modified":"2022-08-18T23:46:11","modified_gmt":"2022-08-18T17:46:11","slug":"irs-saves-guns-for-serious-criminal-activity-says-retired-agent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/photonews\/2022\/08\/18\/news\/4636\/","title":{"rendered":"IRS saves guns for \u2018serious criminal activity,\u2019 says retired agent"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In 2019, the IRS\u2019 CI division was part of Operation Cookout, a multi-agency investigation of the Sinaloa cartel in Virginia, North Carolina and Texas that led to the arrest of 35 defendants and the seizure of 24 firearms, 30 kilos of fentanyl and 30 kilos of heroin.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

WASHINGTON, Broadcasting News Corporation : Retired special agent Anthony Dominicis wants to reassure Americans that the IRS is not coming after them with guns. \u201cIt\u2019s just not true,\u201d he said. \u201cThe only people who need to be concerned about an armed agent are those involved in serious criminal activity.\u201d As President Biden\u2019s new $739 billion Inflation Reduction Act signed is set to pump some $80 billion into the IRS \u2014 adding 87,000 new workers \u2014 some are questioning why the department needs an arsenal of weapons. According to the latest report from the Government Accountability Office on weapons and ammo purchases by federal agencies, issued in 2018 ,the IRS is in possession of 3,282 pistols, 621 shotguns and more than three million rounds of ammo. Among those sounding the alarm is Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley, who last week asked: \u201cAre they going to have a strike force that goes in with AK-15s already loaded, ready to shoot some small-business person in Iowa?\u201d In July, Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz introduced the Disarm the IRS Act to prevent the agency from buying ammunition, saying \u201cthey are arming up the IRS like they\u2019re preparing to take Fallujah.\u201d And while the IRS does purchase new weaponry and ammunition each year, including $92,263 allocated for ammo just in March, only the Criminal Investigation division is allowed to carry guns. CI devotes 72 percent of its resources to those who evade taxes, but the rest involves criminals of all stripes: drug gangs, money launderers, cyber crooks and scam artists, according to the agency\u2019s 2021 report, which said it conducted 1,372 investigations during that fiscal year. Domenicis, who retired from the department in 2019, told The Post that he never fired his gun while working for the IRS as an undercover special agent within CI. He did sometimes draw his weapon, as in 2005 while arresting a Mexican drug dealer holed up in a ranch house outside Phoenix. The suspect had vowed not to be taken alive. \u201cI had an informant inside the house so we knew he was armed \u2014 he had a .45 \u2014 and this guy told me our suspect said he wasn\u2019t going back to jail,\u201d said Dominicis, who had been probing an Arizona arm of the deadly Sinaloa cartel. In an early morning raid following months of work in tandem with the FBI, DEA and other agencies, Dominicis drew his Sig Sauer 9mm pistol, uncertain how the planned takedown might unfold, as the team burst in. \u201cIt\u2019s always dangerous to knock on someone\u2019s door without knowing what\u2019s going on on the other side,\u201d he said. \u201cWe made entry and I was covering a hallway to the right. The suspect came out in his underwear so it was pretty easy to see he wasn\u2019t armed. I put my gun on him and there were no issues.\u201d But that arrest, said Dominicis, underscores the need for IRS agents to have sufficient weaponry to go after violent criminals. \u201cTo be armed is smart,\u201d he said. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t try to arrest somebody without it.\u201d The Criminal Investigation unit, which operates its own forensics lab and gun range, currently has 2,046 agents.
\nDrug cases are among the riskiest for agents, said Dominicis, who now runs a PI firm, Maven Investigations, near Knoxville, Tenn. He said that when he and others busted up an ID theft ring run by a drug gang in Miami, \u201cwe served numerous warrants in seedy neighborhoods.\u201d \u201cThere was a heightened risk there. So the perimeter security teams had AR-15s on hand just in case.\u201d CI was part of Operation Cookout, a multi-agency investigation of the Sinaloa cartel in Virginia, North Carolina and Texas in 2019. The probe led to the arrest of 35 defendants and the seizure of 24 firearms, 30 kilos of fentanyl and 30 kilos of heroin.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t believe most people realize how much these agents are engaged in law-enforcement activities,\u201d said Ryan Corrigan, a longtime CI member who has a new book, \u201cSpecial Agent,\u201d detailing his career.
\n\u201cThe agents are involved in a lot these days: Crypto currency fraud, terrorism, international money laundering. \u201cAny time you make a felony arrest there\u2019s an element of danger to it,\u201d he said. \u201cYou may run into somebody who\u2019s armed. It\u2019s better to have a weapon in case you need it.\u201d News collected from NEW YORK POST.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON, Broadcasting News Corporation : Retired special agent Anthony Dominicis wants to reassure Americans that the IRS is not coming after them with guns. \u201cIt\u2019s just not true,\u201d he said. \u201cThe only people who need to be concerned about an armed agent are those involved in serious criminal activity.\u201d As President Biden\u2019s new $739 billion …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4637,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-photonews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4636"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4636\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4638,"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4636\/revisions\/4638"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bnc24.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}