Ex–Hialeah Police Chief Arrested for Skimming at Least $600,000 in Cash From Drug Funds
The former police chief of Hialeah, Florida, was arrested Monday for allegedly defrauding the city after a state law enforcement investigation uncovered millions in missing cash from the department’s narcotics unit.
Sergio Velazquez, the police chief of Hialeah from 2012 until 2021, is facing felony charges of grand theft, organized fraud, and structuring bank deposits to evade reporting requirements. Prosecutors allege he siphoned off at least $600,000 from narcotics funds and seized cash from 2020 to 2021, then attempted to launder the money through multiple bank accounts and a corporate entity he registered.
Although Velazquez is only charged for alleged conduct over a roughly one-year period, investigators say that they can’t account for several million dollars more that disappeared since 2015.
“This case revealed that Velazquez violated the trust and integrity expected of him as police chief,” Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) Special Agent in Charge John Vecchio said in a press conference Monday at the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office.
The evidence laid out against Velazquez is a particularly brazen example of the perverse police incentives created by the drug war and civil asset forfeiture, a tool that allows police to seize cash and property suspected of being connected to criminal activity such as drug trafficking, even if the owner isn’t charged with a crime.
In an arrest warrant and affidavit obtained by Miami public radio outlet WLRN, an FDLE agent said the FDLE was first alerted to
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