Crooked narco cops: 10 outrageous ways police have enriched themselves on the drug trade

www.rawstory.com...

The drug trade is a great place to make tons of money fast. In 2003, the UN estimated the total worth of the global drug trade at $320 billion, a figure that has certainly grown in the last 12 years.

So it’s not surprising that some police officers, who interact frequently with the narco-world, decide to go crooked. But what makes these cases particularly egregious is that officers used the state’s monopoly on violence to enrich themselves while persecuting others for the same crimes.

Anytime big money is involved corruption is bound to follow.

The uncorrupted LEOs that know and allows the corruption to continue are guilty by association imo.

My story about the drug task force in my area:

When the wife and I first got together and moved in, about 20 years ago, there were 2 guys that were running the task force. One local cop, one liason to the greater task force in other towns. The stories about these two were pretty consistent and bad. Their habit of pulling various drug dealers over and taking their stash (but not reporting it) were rampant. The area had a zero tolerance policy at the time, meaning you could go to jail for having a baggy with a seed in it. But these guys were stealing all manner of drugs from locals.

They both "got caught" (they were investigated and disciplined). What happened? One of them entered witness protection. He was having some real issues with one of the Cartels. His successor was found face down in a pile of coc aine, gun shot to the back of his head, in a small farm storage shack out near Marfa.

The other guy was demoted (and has since moved back up the chain to the second in command) and put through drug treatment. At the same time, he moved in with the girlfriend he had been seeing after his wife kicked him out. So they lived across the street from us once he got out of treatment.

I asked a friend who was a cop why he didn't get arrested, and was told that drug cops were expected to end up with a habit, and exploiting the drug using crowd. It was acceptable.

On a semirelated note: about the same time, a cop I went to high school with was busted selling steroids to the rest of the cops in the department.

Back in the 70's the common saying was the cops have the best drugs and the best parties. The stop and take your stash with a "will let you go this time" started around thanks giving and ended with new years and one hell of a party of all the stashes that had been taken and not reported.
a reply to: olaru12