It’s a neat trick if you can get away with it: cops supposedly run a sting operation, in which they launder money for drug cartels, keep some for themselves, and arrest no one. Everybody’s happy — the cops are happy, the drug cartels are happy — except the Department of Justice and IRS.
“Officers enjoyed $1,000 dinners at restaurants in the Miami area, and spent $116,000 on airfare and first-class flights and nearly $60,000 for hotel accommodations, including stays at the Bellagio and the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas and El San Juan Resort & Casino in Puerto Rico. Police also spent over $100,000 on iPads, computers, laptops and other electronics, bought a new Jeep Grand Cherokee for $42,012 and even purchased $25,000 worth of weaponry, including FN P90 submachine guns. (Bal Harbour, a seaside village of 2,500 residents known for having the nation’s top sales-generating mall, reported just one violent crime in 2012.)”
Read the story here, here and here. This same police department has gotten in trouble for abusing civil forfeiture laws, too. Read that story here. Florida also is notorious for its infamous speed traps and a governor who, as a corporate executive, presided over the biggest Medicare fraud up to that time.
Photo: Former Bal Harbour police chief Tom Hunker