February 28, 2023 • 7 mins
Bonus 5: The late 80s were loaded with ramifications of the unprecedented influx of drugs in Miami and the officers trying to police it. Former Miami Dade Detective Jeff Lewis sheds light on one of the infamous era’s most malignant periods of crime and out of control corruption for Miami’s law enforcement.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Murder in Miami is a production of iHeartRadio. We touched
upon the potential for corruption that swirls around the drug
trade in our last bonus. It's a topic that came
up with former Miami Day detective Jeff Lewis and was
(00:21):
particularly evident during Miami's darkest policing period in the late
nineteen eighties, when at one point, nearly ten percent of
the entire Miami Police Department was suspended or fired after
a drug related scandal. It seems to me like that
was a perfect storm because you had this influx of
(00:44):
drug money pouring into the area and you had a
need to increase the policing of it, just in terms
of the sheer number of the volume of officers who
were hired at that time. And did that negatively impact
the force?
Speaker 2 (01:03):
I think it was both a positive and a negative.
Both our department and the City of Miami Police Department
were in a rush to hire police officers to fill
the void, both departments on a national recruiting effort, and
at that time also I believe, like some departments up
North New York in that area, they were laying off officers.
So it kind of worked out and Miami Dade ended
(01:26):
up with officers from all over the north and northeast,
as well as the City of Miami, although I think
the City of Miami ended up with more local individuals
becoming police officers. The problem with that was I don't
think they were able to do thorough background investigations or
really delve into who they were hiring just because they
needed to again fill the void, and as a result,
(01:49):
the individuals slipped through the cracks that turned out to
be actually criminals doing police work, and that came to
fruition later on with the River Cops case, an area
and some other incidents involving police officers. Now, the plus
side was they also ended up hiring quite a few
excellent police officers that I worked with that came on
with me, became detectives and became ranking individuals within the
(02:14):
department and were able to guide the department. It was
a plus an a negative. Fortunately, I think the plus
side came out ahead in the long run.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Could you just, in a nutshell explain what the River
Cops case was?
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Yes, the River Cops case was a group of City
Miami uniform police officers working the midnight shift would go
to the Miami River and rob the locations that were
board the Haitian traders that were coming to Miami. Usually
they had multiple kilos of cocaine on board, and they
would literally load up their police cars with cocaine and
(02:52):
take it out, and then from there they would distribute it,
sell it, make money doing it, and a lot of
those robberies weren't reported because theations didn't want to get
arrested for dealing drugs. And this went on for a
little while until they hit a boat where the Haitian
victims actually jumped off the boat they would care for
their lives, and in doing so, a couple of them
(03:13):
drowned in the Miami River. This occurred within our jurisdiction,
so our homicide unit, led by Alex Alvarez, assumed the
investigation and subsequently arrested twelve or thirteen City Miami uniform
officers for this homicide and drug dealing and ensnared probably
another one hundred or so that were caught up one
way or another in the Sea Mining Police Department. Some
(03:37):
not rightfully so, but you know, some were guilty by association.
It was a big mess for the City Mining Police Department.
In our department because everyone looked down on the police
at that particular time, and this was again during the
height of the criminal activity, so it kind of hindered
us a little bit as well. But eventually they were
all arrested and exposed and were shut down by our
(04:00):
police department.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Am I mistaken in believing that also around this time
there were actually criminals who would dress up in police
uniforms and do you know, home break ins And.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
What happened was eventually, as we found out and working
in robbery, was that that was in fact occurring where
the criminal element and this was basically initiated after the
Marrial moment. One hundreds of thousands of Mario Alitos will
be from prisons and mental wards in Cuba and they
came to Miami and they needed a job and they
(04:42):
didn't want to work, not all of them, but a
lot of them, and they figured out the easiest way
to rob a drug dealer was to dress up like
a police officer, get a uniform or get a shirt
that said the police, draft up a fake warrant, put
the gun belt on, get a fake badge. Anybody could
get a badge. You can still get badges today and
do it and pose as police officers, and we started
(05:03):
getting these cases. We really didn't know what to think
at the time because we were a little baffled by it.
And then we figured out that it wasn't a police
impersonators doing these home invasion robberies. And they were probably
thousands of these different groups acted as police officers to
do these home invasion robberies.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Wow, I can't imagine how difficult it would have been
to have been, you know, a good honest cop in
that time period where you had not only you know,
an element of rogue criminals within the department, but then
actual criminals impersonating police officers. All right.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
It was definitely unique. And of course, you know, once
we figured it out, we started our investigations and sometimes
working with the FBI or the DA or ATF and
we started arresting these gangs and you go in and
start recovering the equipment and the uniforms and the guns,
and some of them were better equipped than we were.
Some of them had better firepowers, more firepower than we did.
(06:09):
And they had police radios. I mean, they would buy
cars and make them look like police cars at the
police lights. They would do traffic stops on drug dealers.
I mean, these guys really took it to the extreme,
and they made a lot of money doing it because
again a lot of these robberies were not reported initially
because the drug dealers didn't want to be identified as
(06:30):
drug dealers or they didn't want to make themselves known
to law enforcement. So unless somebody got hurt or shot
or actually killed during one of these robberies, we had
no knowledge of it. And then what would happen when
we started making arrests and we started getting cooperation from
some of these individuals. They would identify locations to us
that they had robbed, and we'd checked those locations, we
(06:51):
would find out that there were no police reports made,
and of course we'd identify those individuals and pass out
on to the narcotics detectives.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Wow, insane, It was crazy. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
the stories that matter to you.
Murder in Miami is a production of iHeartRadio. We touched
upon the potential for corruption that swirls around the drug
trade in our last bonus. It's a topic that came
up with former Miami Day detective Jeff Lewis and was
(00:21):
particularly evident during Miami's darkest policing period in the late
nineteen eighties, when at one point, nearly ten percent of
the entire Miami Police Department was suspended or fired after
a drug related scandal. It seems to me like that
was a perfect storm because you had this influx of
(00:44):
drug money pouring into the area and you had a
need to increase the policing of it, just in terms
of the sheer number of the volume of officers who
were hired at that time. And did that negatively impact
the force?
Speaker 2 (01:03):
I think it was both a positive and a negative.
Both our department and the City of Miami Police Department
were in a rush to hire police officers to fill
the void, both departments on a national recruiting effort, and
at that time also I believe, like some departments up
North New York in that area, they were laying off officers.
So it kind of worked out and Miami Dade ended
(01:26):
up with officers from all over the north and northeast,
as well as the City of Miami, although I think
the City of Miami ended up with more local individuals
becoming police officers. The problem with that was I don't
think they were able to do thorough background investigations or
really delve into who they were hiring just because they
needed to again fill the void, and as a result,
(01:49):
the individuals slipped through the cracks that turned out to
be actually criminals doing police work, and that came to
fruition later on with the River Cops case, an area
and some other incidents involving police officers. Now, the plus
side was they also ended up hiring quite a few
excellent police officers that I worked with that came on
with me, became detectives and became ranking individuals within the
(02:14):
department and were able to guide the department. It was
a plus an a negative. Fortunately, I think the plus
side came out ahead in the long run.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Could you just, in a nutshell explain what the River
Cops case was?
Speaker 2 (02:30):
Yes, the River Cops case was a group of City
Miami uniform police officers working the midnight shift would go
to the Miami River and rob the locations that were
board the Haitian traders that were coming to Miami. Usually
they had multiple kilos of cocaine on board, and they
would literally load up their police cars with cocaine and
(02:52):
take it out, and then from there they would distribute it,
sell it, make money doing it, and a lot of
those robberies weren't reported because theations didn't want to get
arrested for dealing drugs. And this went on for a
little while until they hit a boat where the Haitian
victims actually jumped off the boat they would care for
their lives, and in doing so, a couple of them
(03:13):
drowned in the Miami River. This occurred within our jurisdiction,
so our homicide unit, led by Alex Alvarez, assumed the
investigation and subsequently arrested twelve or thirteen City Miami uniform
officers for this homicide and drug dealing and ensnared probably
another one hundred or so that were caught up one
way or another in the Sea Mining Police Department. Some
(03:37):
not rightfully so, but you know, some were guilty by association.
It was a big mess for the City Mining Police Department.
In our department because everyone looked down on the police
at that particular time, and this was again during the
height of the criminal activity, so it kind of hindered
us a little bit as well. But eventually they were
all arrested and exposed and were shut down by our
(04:00):
police department.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Am I mistaken in believing that also around this time
there were actually criminals who would dress up in police
uniforms and do you know, home break ins And.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
What happened was eventually, as we found out and working
in robbery, was that that was in fact occurring where
the criminal element and this was basically initiated after the
Marrial moment. One hundreds of thousands of Mario Alitos will
be from prisons and mental wards in Cuba and they
came to Miami and they needed a job and they
(04:42):
didn't want to work, not all of them, but a
lot of them, and they figured out the easiest way
to rob a drug dealer was to dress up like
a police officer, get a uniform or get a shirt
that said the police, draft up a fake warrant, put
the gun belt on, get a fake badge. Anybody could
get a badge. You can still get badges today and
do it and pose as police officers, and we started
(05:03):
getting these cases. We really didn't know what to think
at the time because we were a little baffled by it.
And then we figured out that it wasn't a police
impersonators doing these home invasion robberies. And they were probably
thousands of these different groups acted as police officers to
do these home invasion robberies.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Wow, I can't imagine how difficult it would have been
to have been, you know, a good honest cop in
that time period where you had not only you know,
an element of rogue criminals within the department, but then
actual criminals impersonating police officers. All right.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
It was definitely unique. And of course, you know, once
we figured it out, we started our investigations and sometimes
working with the FBI or the DA or ATF and
we started arresting these gangs and you go in and
start recovering the equipment and the uniforms and the guns,
and some of them were better equipped than we were.
Some of them had better firepowers, more firepower than we did.
(06:09):
And they had police radios. I mean, they would buy
cars and make them look like police cars at the
police lights. They would do traffic stops on drug dealers.
I mean, these guys really took it to the extreme,
and they made a lot of money doing it because
again a lot of these robberies were not reported initially
because the drug dealers didn't want to be identified as
(06:30):
drug dealers or they didn't want to make themselves known
to law enforcement. So unless somebody got hurt or shot
or actually killed during one of these robberies, we had
no knowledge of it. And then what would happen when
we started making arrests and we started getting cooperation from
some of these individuals. They would identify locations to us
that they had robbed, and we'd checked those locations, we
(06:51):
would find out that there were no police reports made,
and of course we'd identify those individuals and pass out
on to the narcotics detectives.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Wow, insane, It was crazy. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get
the stories that matter to you.
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