Es lo que me viene a la mente :)

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Note added at 3 mins (2006-04-28 23:06:34 GMT)
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o EMBOSCADA

hasta donde yo sé, se dice "operación". Un "operativo" implica una organización, un orden, un marco. Una "operación" es siempre tramposa (en éste contexto, por supuesto)

complete sentence, please

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Note added at 9 mins (2006-04-28 23:12:22 GMT)
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tendieron una redada

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Note added at 10 mins (2006-04-28 23:13:27 GMT)
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el oyente ) ) juan luis sánchez » Archivo del Blog » Redada contra ...Redada contra el P2P · Lo está contando la SER en este momento:. Operación policial en contra el intercambio de archivos en Internet. ...
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“Undercover operation” (= operación encubierta) is the general term, which includes “entrapment”; in its turn, “sting operation” is a type of entrapment used by law enforcement agents.

I would say that “instigación al delito por agente encubierto” is a good rendition of “sting operation”.

Good luck!
Manuel
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Entrapment

Entrapment happens when law enforcement agents (or a CrimeFighter) coax someone into committing a criminal act which the person, without the prompting and coaxing, would not normally consider.
Leading a person to commit a criminal act and then making an arrest is not legally or morally right. In entrapment the person doing the coaxing and manipulating of the accused is guilty of instigating a criminal act that would not otherwise have taken place. Instead of discouraging or preventing crime, the act of entrapment makes it happen.

Sting operations are based on legal entrapment.
For example, suppose and officer or CrimeFighter knows that a person regularly commits certain drug law violations, and a CrimeFighter poses as a customer to make an offer to purchase a supply of narcotics to obtain evidence. The intent to commit a criminal act was already in the mind of the accused and is part of his normal business activity. In this instance, entrapment is not a defense.

Entrapment usually occurs when the defendant isn't the instigator of the criminal act and would not normally have done such a thing on his or her own. If the defendant was coaxed or coerced into the crime or criminal activity by the officer or CrimeFighter simply to make an arrest, that would be entrapment.

http://essay.studyarea.com/cgi-bin/newsearch.cgi?cs=&q=Hard ...
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What's the difference between an undercover sting operation and entrapment? Here's an unrelated example.

Say a drug task force agent gets a tip that someone is selling ecstasy at a local nightclub. He is allowed to go there undercover and observe. If what he sees verifies the tip, he can insinuate himself into the suspect's acquaintance and ask if he can buy some ecstasy.

When the suspect makes the sale, he's arrested.

With entrapment, a law enforcement officer entices a person to break the law, to act in a way he wouldn't have if he hadn't been egged on.

Let's say the same drug task force agent approaches someone with no history of selling drugs and says: "Man, my back is killing me and I can't get a new prescription until Monday because my doctor's on vacation. Doesn't your mom take OxyContin? Can you get me a couple of pills? I'll pay you for them."

The subject makes the sale and he's arrested, but this time the arrest is illegal.
http://www.mdwfp.com/forums/post.asp?method=ReplyQuote&REPLY...
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Reversing Sorrells’ conviction, the Court provided the classical definition of entrapment:
“the conception and planning of an offense by an officer, and his procurement of its commission by one who would not have perpetrated it except for the trickery, persuasion, or fraud of the officer.” Sorrells v. U. S., 287 U.S. 435 (1932) (Roberts, J., concurring).
http://www.cochranfirm.com/resource/article_detail.asp?id=7&...
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Undercover Sting Operations

1. The term, represented, in this subsection means any representation made by either a law enforcement officer or by another person at the direction or approval of a federal official who is authorized to investigate or prosecute section 1956(a)(3) violations. Explicit representations need not be made, but are preferred.

7. Defenses in undercover operations include entrapment, i.e., government inducement or a lack of predisposition by a defendant to commit a crime, and outrageous government conduct whereby the government violates a defendant's constitutional rights. A review of predisposition must be made in any undercover operation, especially for a first-time offender with nothing criminal in his or her background.
[Handbook of Criminal Investigation: http://cryptome.org/irs-ci/irs-ci.htm]
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1. Title 18 USC §1956(a)(3) is a sting provision that allows for undercover operations whereby the government, or a directed informant, can represent funds as being derived from a SUA. This subsection was added to the statute expressly to permit prosecution where the defendant believes the proceeds were derived from a SUA because of a representation made by a law enforcement officer (LEO) or an informant working under the LEO’s control. The elements include that a defendant:

5. Defenses in undercover operations include entrapment, i.e., government inducement or a lack of predisposition by a defendant to commit a crime, and outrageous government conduct whereby the government violates a defendant’s constitutional rights. A review of predisposition must be made in any undercover operation, especially for a first-time offender with nothing criminal in his/her background.

6. The sting provision does not include conduct intended to evade tax.
http://www.irs.gov/irm/part9/ch05s05.html
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The Undercover Guidelines describe the importance of FBI undercover operations:

The use of undercover techniques, including proprietary business entities, is essential to the detection, prevention, and prosecution of white collar crime, public corruption, terrorism, organized crime, offenses involving controlled substances, and other priority areas of investigation.245

As we detailed in Chapter Two, the Undercover Guidelines were revised in 1982 following congressional hearings and press accounts critical of the FBI's ABSCAM undercover operation targeting official corruption in the early 1980s. At that time, FBI Director William Webster discussed the importance of undercover operations:

The kinds of crimes the FBI is giving high priority today - bribery, gambling, narcotics, theft of technology, other white collar violations - often require undercover work. They are so-called consensual crimes. There is a willing participant on each side, so it is difficult to come up with someone willing to be a material witness to the crime. . . .

Undercover operations, usually coupled with a cooperating witness or an informant, permit us to get inside a criminal apparatus and stay there long enough to find out how it works and who the players are. Undercover work is an exceedingly cost effective method of getting at problems that could not be solved in any other way.246
http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/special/0509/chapter4.htm

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Jacobson held that when an undercover agent merely offers a person the opportunity to break the law, and the person eagerly does so -- as in a typical illegal drug sting -- the person's ready commission of the crime amply demonstrates predisposition. In such a case, the defendant is usually not entitled to a jury instruction on the entrapment defense.
(…)

When Jacobson's home was searched, investigators found only the one nudist magazine that had prompted the sting investigation and the materials the government had sent. No additional evidence ever linked Jacobson to pedophilia or child pornography.
http://www.ci.keene.nh.us/police/byrd.htm
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Caracas.- En el proyecto de Ley Contra la Delincuencia Organizada que se discutirá esta semana en el Congreso de la República se incluye, como legal, la figura del agente provocador, hoy conocido como agente encubierto, siempre y cuando éste sea miembro de alguno de los cuerpos de seguridad el Estado y se cumplan una serie de circunstancias que hagan obligante su intervención. (…)

En relación al Agente Provocador el proyecto señala: 'Se autoriza al Cuerpo Técnico de Policía Judicial y a los Organos competentes de las Fuerzas Armadas de Cooperación, para que sus funcionarios puedan cumplir funciones de Agente Provocador en los delitos de delincuencia organizada tipificados en esta Ley, por lo que podrá realizar la técnica policial de entrega controlada.(...)
esta operación no puede llevarse a cabo sin la autorización previa de un Juez Penal competente de la circunscripción judicial donde se inicia la operación policial, a solicitud y supervisión del Ministerio Público'.
http://www.el-universal.com/1998/06/01/01160AA.shtml