A Total of 14 Police Officers Among 20 Arrested in Mississippi Narcotics Corruption Operation
A group of 14 serving and previous police personnel are part of twenty individuals charged taken into custody in Mississippi and Tennessee for taking illicit payments from narcotics dealers in to provide police protection, in what officials described as "an enormous breach of the community's confidence".
These apprehensions follow a years-long probe by national law enforcement who posed as narcotics dealers. Two of the defendants were county sheriffs from Mississippi.
Federal officials set up the undercover operation after receiving reports from actual narcotics criminals about having to pay bribes to officers.
The bribery network allegedly extended beyond the Mississippi Delta region into the city of Memphis in Tennessee, and Miami, Florida.
"The original complaints that started the inquiry were from narcotics traffickers," a U.S. attorney stated during a press briefing on the day of the announcement.
Certain law enforcement members had accepted bribes between $20,000 (£15,000) and $37,000, the prosecutor added.
This operation involved covert national officers acting as narcotics sellers with simulated drugs, which the defendants allegedly believed to be 25 kilograms (55 pounds) of the illegal substance.
"They sold out the public," declared a high-ranking federal agent. "They betrayed the confidence that the people had in them, disgraced the uniform and weakened the efforts of honest police members across this state and region."
The arrests take place as American authorities have embarked on air strikes in the southern continent against alleged drug traffickers.
