Crooked Narco Cops: 10 Outrageous Ways Police Have Enriched Themselves on the Drug Trade

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http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/crooked-narco-cops-10-outrageous-ways-police-have-enriched-themselves-drug-trade



1. San Antonio

Just last week, Officer Konrad Chatys in San Antonio was picked up by police for stealing guns, marijuana and money from a couple's car while investigating a domestic violence call. Chatys didn't think the couple would report his theft to the police, but they did. Their complaint launched an investigation culminating in Chatys' arrest and placement on administrative leave. It's worth noting that the only thing Chatys did that was illegal was keeping the contraband for himself. If he'd turned it into his precinct, they could have kept it under civil asset forfeiture policy.

2. Hidalgo County, Texas
In a recent feature in Rolling Stone, Josh Eells reported on a special police drug task force located on the Texas-Mexico border known as the Panama Unit, whose members became rich ripping off local drug gangs. The 11-person SWAT-trained unit was headed by Jonathon Trevino, the flunky son of the county sheriff, which made it easier for the team to rob drug dealers without detection. While the team did seize a lot of dope—Hidalgo is located within one of the hottest drug corridors in the country—Trevino himself estimates that they put as much as a fourth of what they recovered back onto the street through dirty deals.

3. Baltimore

In 2005, Baltimore police officers William King and Antonio Murray were indicted for 33 counts related to “conspiring to rob and extort cocaine, heroin and marijuana—as well as drug-related proceeds— from suspects they met on city streets.” They also shook down addicts for money in one of the poorest neighborhoods of Baltimore, where people already had few avenues for recourse against vicious policing. The two former officers were sentenced to a total of 454 years in prison. More recently from Baltimore, rookie officer Ashley Roane was booked on similar drug conspiracy charges. Roane agreed to steal people's information so that a tax preparer—whom she believed was just a heroin dealer but was also an FBI informant—could file false returns. Another time, Roane provided security in full uniform as the informant executed a heroin deal. In total she was only going to receive $6,000 for the two jobs, but instead is now serving a five-year prison sentence.

4. Chicago

In early 2013, three officers from Schaumburg, a suburb of Chicago, seized tens of thousands of dollars worth of marijuana, heroin and cocaine while serving a search warrant and then proceeded to sell the drugs. After they were arrested in a federal sting, the court found that the former cops “ran a freelance drug ring over a six-month period, forcing a drug dealer to sell narcotics that the officers confiscated in the line of duty, and then splitting money from the sales.” Their sentences were stiff: One is serving a 24-year sentence, another is serving 26 years, and the third could face as much as 36 years behind bars.

[JonLP24]

1. Cops? How about Wachovia

UN Advisor claimed it was drug money that saved some banks from the brink of collapse which makes sense when the claim was drug cartels were the only ones liquidity to invest but I really don't know how banks money besides loaning, ticky-tack overdraft fees(including picking and choosing which transaction to ding first, etc. The whole credit default swaps-mortgage backed securities and the whole creating money out of thin air thing that they do is a foreign language to me.

I do know the price they bought out Wells Fargo was pocket change (which the government was nice enough to cut them a tax break) compared to what cartels were willing to invest & who knows who else profits from the drug trade.

I forgot to add Cartels have little trouble finding Border Patrol agents to bribe. An unattended consequence of the push to send more agents to the border NOW led to corner cutting on the background process.

[Faux pas]

2. Kickin'