DRUG Prohibition creates monsters…example #1

Its a pretty well embedded urban..herbin’..myth that drug cops steal the drugs off their investigative targets and resell them for profit.

Years ago…just mentioning or questioning this phonemenon would get you a quick delivery of “good ole boys” at your door with a bogus warrant and a blank slate to retaliate.(Florida is really the capital of corruption…but for arguments sake.)

Seems the tables have been turned in VA…..

All the way down Abingdon way…in PODUNK Henry County…
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The longtime sheriff of Henry County, Va., and 12 former and current deputies have been charged with participating in a drug-trafficking ring in the rural county on the North Carolina border, Drug Enforcement Agency officials said yesterday.

Twenty people, including sworn officers, employees and associates of officers, dealt in illegal drugs, including cocaine, crack, steroids, ketamine and hundreds of pounds of marijuana, over a five-year period beginning in 1998, federal officials said. Participants in the conspiracy also trafficked in seized weapons, including a machine gun, according to a 48-count indictment returned Wednesday in Abingdon and unsealed yesterday.

Harold F. Cassell, 68, who has been sheriff since 1992, was alerted to the illegal activity but did nothing to stop it, instead making false statements and aiding in money laundering to cover it up, federal officials said.

DEA officials said a major break came in March 2005 during a large investigation, dubbed Operation Cyber Chase, into illegal online prescription drug sales.

While investigating more than 200 Web sites that illegally sold drugs around the world, DEA agents intercepted an express mail package containing 2 kilograms of ketamine, an animal tranquilizer known as Special K, that was shipped to a Henry residence, the indictment says.

DEA agents set up a sting for its intended recipient, who told them he was working as a middleman for Sgt. James A. Vaught of the sheriff’s office, the indictment says. The middleman said the residence was used for drug deals and extramarital affairs, the indictment says.