Officers’ Confessions Break Up Police Cocaine Ring in Miami

Confessions by two Miami officers have cracked open a police ring that allegedly killed four drug dealers and terrorized others, stole their cocaine and plotted to murder two federal witnesses, authorities said Friday.

The FBI and local law enforcement agencies have been investigating the Police Department for almost two years and say that as many as 15 officers may be directly involved in a ring linked to $15 million in drug trafficking and the four deaths.

“There have been significant developments in the case, and we believe it’s the beginning of an ongoing effort to root out corruption in law enforcement,” FBI spokesman Paul Miller said Friday.

Mistrial Declared

The first trial against seven alleged members of the ring, all former officers, ended in a mistrial in January. Within the last 10 days, four of the seven have been arrested on charges of allegedly plotting to kill the two star witnesses at their trial, authorities said.

In addition, two others among the seven defendants are being sought as fugitives on the same charges. An eighth former officer was accused of plotting with the defendants, and two current officers were relieved of duty with pay in the investigation.

Two of the current or former officers implicated in the plots confessed, giving investigators new information on the ring’s operation, sources said.

Miami Police Chief Clarence Dickson has presided over the department during this and other unrelated investigations, including probes of missing money used in drug stings and marijuana stolen from evidence lockers.

The investigations are finally coming to an end, Dickson said Friday, estimating that the number of jailed officers would be “maybe 20 to 25 before we clean up.”

The flurry of arrests in the last 10 days was touched off by convicted hit man Jose Martinez, who told authorities that officers offered him $100,000 to kill Armando Un, a witness at the trial of the seven.

Former officer Rodolfo Arias, one of the defendants, was arrested last week and agreed to cooperate with authorities in return for a reduced sentence, one of his lawyers, Eugene Sauls, said Friday.

Officials who asked that they not be identified said that Arias gave them details of a plot, also unsuccessful, to kill the second key witness, Pedro Ramos.

Both witnesses were admitted drug dealers who said in some cases they tipped the ring to incoming drug shipments.

The original charges included civil rights murder counts against some of the officers related to the deaths of three men who drowned in July, 1985, after a raid on a drug boat they were guarding on the Miami River. Days later, a fourth dealer was found shot to death.