At the Agriculture Department, “more than 100 undercover agents pose as food stamp recipients at thousands of neighborhood stores to spot suspicious vendors and fraud,” says the New York Times in a story about a significant expansion throughout the government of undercover work. It says at least 40 federal agencies have undercover units. In another description of USDA’s undercover work, the Times said the agents “root out illegal food stamp transactions by individuals and businesses or any financial fraud involving USDA programs.” USDA was among seven agencies whose activities were covered by the newspaper.
“Most federal agencies declined to discuss the number of undercover agents they employed or the types of investigations they handled,” said the Times, so it was impossible to assess the value of the work. “But current and former law enforcement officials said the number of federal agents doing such work appeared to total well into the thousands, with many agencies beefing up their ranks in recent years, or starting new undercover units.”