While official records linking the ATFC to the CIA do not appear widely in available government documents, their collaboration is an open secret. One early report by the Association of Former Intelligence Officers, an advocacy organization for the US intelligence community, noted “the cell has about two-dozen members drawn from the Drug Enforcement Administration, US Central Command, the Treasury Department and the CIA. The FBI is expected to join soon.”

Global news wire Agency France-Presse characterized ATFC as “a multi-agency organization currently comprising about 30 specialists on loan from the Department of Drug Enforcement, Department of the Treasury, Department of Justice, Department of Defense’s CENTCOM, the CIA and the FBI.”