In what circumstances will a federal agent be permitted to search a defendant's car?

We discussed the taint problem more recently in United States v. Capra, 501 F.2d 267 (2 Cir. 1974), cert. denied, 420 U.S. 990, 95 S.Ct. 1424, 43 L.Ed.2d 670 (1975), in the context of a warrantless search. There, the district court upheld such a search of the defendant's car on the grounds that one of the federal agents knew of defendant's prior use of his car for narcotics transactions and therefore had probable cause to believe that the car was carrying contraband. We noted that even if this agent's knowledge of defendant's uses of his car was derived from an illegal wiretap sixteen months before, another agent present at the search

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