When you are operating with no oversight and accountability only to oaths and martial consequences, you might have datas that show you the criminal enterprise which is unshareable. In that case, you might not use even a backchannel communication to identify the target to the next lowest / visible layer of law enforcement. On short notice with no field work you can build fake fingerprints. You literally print them with a special printer and special film. Or you insert digitally a fingerprint into collected evidence as soon as it is digitized but before you share with analysis entities such as FBI who cross check fingerprints. So you know people close to this person are guilty, but to avoid exposure you use a dirty trick to impugn them secretly. These techniques are fairly common and not usually by the good guys.