WASHINGTON (Map, News) - Drug Enforcement Agents lost — or had stolen from them — more than 200 laptops and couldn't say whether the computers contained sensitive or secret information, a Justice Department review found.

Inspector General Glenn A. Fine also reported Friday that the drug agency wasn't reporting missing or stolen weapons and computers fast enough, making it harder to recover them.

Drug agents lost 91 weapons — including 69 stolen firearms — in five years, Fine's report found. Most of the weapons loss was due to agents ignoring DEA policy that requires that agents not leave their weapons in cars. Of the stolen weapons, 44 were taken from cars, Fine reported.

In one case from late April, 2006, a DEA agent left his gun in a supermarket, Fine's auditors found.

Fine's audit, issued Friday, was designed to follow up on a 2002 report that blasted the DEA for not handling its weapons and computers properly. Fine said many of the problems persist.

Most troubling, Fine found, was DEA's inability to account for what kind of information was going into its laptops. Of the 231 laptops that went missing in the past five years, DEA was only able to say whether five of them contained secret or sensitive information, Fine's report states.

The DEA only began to encrypt its laptops in 2006 and many remain easily accessible, Fine said.

DEA spokeman Garrison Courtney told ABC news that his agency "has made significant improvements" in preventing the loss of its laptops.

Fine's report notes that the rate of loss for laptops has declined by more than 50 percent since the 2002 report. But the rate of loss for weapons has more than doubled since 2002, Fine wrote.

The DEA also objected to FIne's recommendation that all of its laptops be encrypted. The agency says that the step isn't necessary because many laptops are only used for secondary functions and won't come in contact with sensitive information.

Lost

DEA's missing arsenal:

» 82 handguns

» Five shotguns

» Two rifles

» Two submachine guns

bmyers@dcexaminer.com