Federal agents have broken up a drug ring that paid police and airport security officers to protect the illegal shipment from Florida to Connecticut of enormous quantities of highly addictive pain medication, reports the Hartford Courant. Three federal Transportation Security Administration officers, two police officers, and 13 drug dealers in Florida, New York, and Connecticut were charged with working for the ring that, in some weeks, dumped tens of thousands of oxycodone pills in the Waterbury area.
Authorities said the TSA officers — two in Florida and one in New York — were paid to help drug couriers move pills and the stacks of cash they generated through airport screening systems. One of the police officers — a Florida state trooper — took drug money to travel to Connecticut, where he provided “protection” to a courier selling thousands of pills to a dozen or more lower-level dealers. “In these times, no one needs to be reminded about how dangerous it is when officers who have sworn to uphold the law accept money to ‘look the other way,’ ” said Connecticut U.S. Attorney David Fein.