The FBI is investigating one or more members of a Miami Police Department undercover squad on allegations that they stole money and drugs from street dealers, reports the Miami Herald. Police Chief Miguel Exposito declined to talk about the inquiry, but said his department had opened an internal probe.
The probe is focusing on the department’s Central District crime-suppression unit, a group of cops who do undercover street work. The FBI is looking into whether any of the plainclothes officers or their supervisor pocketed cash from drug dealers or took it and gave some to informants without properly accounting for it, according to sources. Agents also are checking allegations that officers stole drugs from dealers. The police department’s elite street-crime unit was scarred by scandal a decade ago when 13 officers were charged in a conspiracy to plant guns in four questionable shootings from 1995 to 1997 and lying to investigators.