The Secret Service sex scandal goes beyond bullets in D.C. hotel rooms and cocaine-fueled orgies in Colombia: According to several whistleblowers, Secret Service agents have hired prostitutes and had extramarital affairs with foreign nationals in at least 17 different countries.

The culture of sexual misconduct and overseas drunkenness is so rampant in the agency that last year's prostitute scandal in Cartagena was investigated by Ignacio Zamora Jr., the same senior agent who lost his job earlier this year after trying to break into the hotel room of a woman he'd just presumably had sex with because he'd left behind a bullet from his service weapon.

That account pales in comparison to some of the agents' other exploits. Here's one of the juicier ones, from the Washington Post:

In one incident in November 2009, the whistleblower said, a crew of more than 70 agents was waiting on a military transport plane to depart Thailand after a rest stop in the country before heading to South Korea.

One of the agents was missing, and to avoid a delay, a supervisor agreed to stay behind to retrieve him from a Thai brothel, where he was found intoxicated. Senior management agreed to transport the agent back to the United States at great expense on a commercial flight. He faced no punishment, the whistleblower said.

Senator Ronald Johnson, the ranking Republican on the Homeland Security committee, told the Post that whistleblowers testified about the regular practice of agents hiring prostitutes and having affairs with foreign nationals, both of which are acts that are forbidden by the Secret Service because of the obvious security concerns they create.

"This type of behavior jeopardizes the security of the President of the United States and makes U.S. government personnel susceptible to coercion and blackmail," Johnson said in his statement.

The Secret Service, to their credit, are owning up to the newly publicized scandals. From the Post:

Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan hung up on a reporter seeking comment Thursday on Zamora's role and other allegations

[Image via AP]