What Is a Controlled Buy and How Does It Lead to Charges?

Thanks for visiting Spodek Law Group – a second-generation criminal defense firm managed by Todd Spodek, with over 50 years of combined experience defending controlled buy cases throughout New York. A controlled buy is when police arrange for someone – usually a confidential informant – to purchase drugs from you under surveillance. The buyer is searched before and after, given marked money with serial numbers logged, and wears a recording device. One controlled buy creates probable cause for search warrants. Multiple buys build conspiracy cases. Police often wait months before arresting you.

This article explains what controlled buys are, how they lead to criminal charges, the role of confidential informants, what evidence prosecutors use, and how to defend against controlled buy cases. We’re covering what matters when police target you with controlled purchases.

What Is a Controlled Buy?

A controlled buy is a purchase of drugs by an undercover officer or confidential informant at the direction of police. Law enforcement initiates, manages, oversees, and documents the entire transaction.

Standard procedure: Police search the buyer before the transaction. Police give the buyer “buy money” – cash with serial numbers logged. The buyer wears a recording device. After the transaction, the buyer meets with police. Police take control of the drugs. Police search the buyer again. The buyer gives a statement describing the transaction.

Purpose: Controlled buys establish probable cause for search warrants, arrest warrants, and wiretap orders. They provide direct evidence of drug sales and build cases over time through multiple transactions.

How Controlled Buys Lead to Criminal Charges

Controlled buys create probable cause – the legal standard required for warrants and arrests.

Building probable cause: A single controlled buy establishes probable cause. Police use this to obtain search warrants for your residence, vehicle, or business. Multiple controlled buys establish patterns supporting conspiracy charges and higher-level trafficking offenses.

Delayed arrests: Police often wait months or years before arrests. The statute of limitations extends for years – there’s no rush to prosecute immediately. Police conduct multiple buys, obtain wiretaps, identify suppliers, and build cases against entire organizations before arresting anyone.

How you find out: You might not know until agents execute search warrants at your home, police arrest you months later, or you receive a grand jury subpoena listing specific dates when CIs made purchases.

The Role of Confidential Informants in Controlled Buys

Most controlled buys use confidential informants (CIs) – individuals who cooperate with law enforcement in exchange for benefits.

How CIs are recruited: Police arrest someone for drug offenses and offer a deal – work off your charges by making controlled buys. Or police pay CIs cash for each successful purchase. Or CIs cooperate to avoid deportation, probation violations, or other prosecutions.

CI management: Law enforcement agencies follow formal policies for managing CIs. Agents complete suitability reports, document all CI contacts, debrief CIs after transactions, and determine payment amounts.

Reliability problems: CIs have motives to lie. They’re working off serious charges, earning money, or avoiding prison – they’ll say what police want to hear. Some fabricate information, exaggerate access, or misidentify sellers to maintain their value to law enforcement.

Evidence Prosecutors Use from Controlled Buys

Recordings: CIs often wear audio or video recording devices during transactions. Prosecutors play recordings for juries as direct evidence. Defense challenges include audio quality, lack of visual confirmation, and selective editing.

Marked money: Police log serial numbers of bills given to CIs. After arrest, police seize cash from you. Matching serial numbers are used as proof you accepted payment. Defense challenges include circulation (bills pass through many hands), timing issues, and lack of direct connection.

Field testing and lab analysis: Drugs purchased are field-tested and sent for laboratory analysis. Chain of custody documentation tracks drugs from purchase to trial. Defense challenges include field test unreliability, lab errors, contamination, and chain of custody gaps.

CI testimony: CIs testify at trial identifying you as the seller. Defense challenges include credibility issues, motive to lie, inconsistencies, and bias.

Multiple Buys and Conspiracy Charges

Police conduct multiple purchases over weeks or months. Multiple buys show patterns of drug sales and support higher charges. Multiple controlled buys support conspiracy charges – you’re liable for the entire distribution network even if you didn’t personally make every sale. Sentencing based on total drug quantity from all buys, not just your personal sales.

Defenses Against Controlled Buy Evidence

Entrapment: The entrapment defense has two elements – government inducement and lack of predisposition. If CIs pressured, coerced, or exploited relationships to get you to sell drugs when you wouldn’t have otherwise, entrapment may apply. Government must prove beyond reasonable doubt you were predisposed once you raise entrapment.

Challenge CI credibility: CIs are the weakest link. We demand their identities, criminal histories, deals with prosecutors, payment records. We cross-examine them on inconsistencies. We expose their motives – charges they faced, money they earned, benefits they received. Juries distrust CIs once they understand the incentives driving cooperation.

Procedural violations: If police failed to search CIs before buys, drugs could have come from the CI. If serial numbers weren’t properly logged, marked money evidence is unreliable. If chain of custody has gaps, drugs might have been contaminated. We examine every procedure and move to suppress evidence obtained through violations.

Misidentification: CIs sometimes misidentify sellers. If transactions occurred in crowded locations, at night, or involved multiple people, identification becomes disputed. We challenge whether prosecutors can prove beyond reasonable doubt that you sold drugs during the controlled buy.

What Happens After You’re Charged

Prosecutors use controlled buy evidence to pressure cooperation. They’ll show you recordings, marked money, and CI statements. They’ll offer deals – cooperate by identifying your supplier and you’ll get reduced charges. This is how task forces work up the chain.

If you reject cooperation, prosecutors proceed to trial. Controlled buy cases go to trial frequently because defendants challenge CI credibility and raise entrapment defenses. Juries are skeptical of CIs – especially when defense exposes their deals and motives.

What Spodek Law Group Does in Controlled Buy Cases

We’ve defended hundreds of controlled buy cases – from single-transaction misdemeanors to multi-buy conspiracy cases. Our team includes former prosecutors who understand how law enforcement conducts controlled purchases and where procedures fail.

We immediately demand discovery – recordings, CI reports, marked money logs, search protocols. We examine whether police followed procedures and identify inconsistencies between CI statements and physical evidence.

We investigate CIs’ backgrounds – criminal histories, prior cooperation, false statements in other cases. We demand their deals with prosecutors and cross-examine them on every inconsistency. Juries acquit when they understand CIs lied or exaggerated.

We examine whether police induced you to sell drugs. If CIs exploited relationships, begged repeatedly, or offered excessive payment, entrapment applies. We force prosecutors to prove predisposition.

If police violated procedures, evidence gets suppressed. We file suppression motions and force prosecutors to prove every procedure was followed correctly.

At Spodek Law Group, we hold prosecutors to their burden – prove beyond reasonable doubt that you sold drugs, that CIs are credible, that procedures were followed. You can reach us 24/7 at our offices throughout NYC and Long Island. When your freedom depends on challenging controlled buy evidence, your defense matters.