More than a dozen prison guards in South Florida were selling more than honey buns and soap at the commissary. The FBI claims they had established their own drug trafficking ring and found a steady supply of customers in the form of prisoners.
"Operation Blind Justice" was anything but that on Thursday, when 15 South Florida prison guards were arrested for allegedly routinely selling cocaine to prison inmates.
The FBI's drug ring investigation centered on the Glades Correctional Institution and the South Bay Correctional facility. Eleven guards from Glades and four from South Bay were arrested in the dragnet, reports the Miami Herald.
It turns out a tip from a former warden did the corrections officers in. Christopher Douglas noticed the drug peddling and dropped a dime in 2007 to the Florida Deparement of Corrections Inspector General's office. The FBI soon swooped in and after 26-months, collared the badge-wearing drug dealers.
The guards thought they were working for a major drug transporter, but instead they were working for undercover FBI agents. The guards agreed to protect drug shipments and use there badges ttransport multi-kilo loads of cocaine from Miami-dade to West Palm Beach.
The FBI said the group willingingly did the transports on nine different occasions. In total, the group made about $150,000 for their help.
Now the group faces federal drug, bribery and unlawful compensation charges.
Local
It's unclear how long the prison drug ring had been operating, but some of the prison guards had been working in the system for as long as 12 years.
