Feds probe Bal Harbour Police Department over seized millions - Bal Harbours police force has gone

after drug gangs operating far outside the villages borders, confiscating millions and alarming the
feds.
Miami Herald, The (FL) - October 27, 2012

Author/Byline: Michael Sallah And Daniel Chang, dchang@MiamiHerald.com

Readability: >12 grade level (Lexile: 1390)
For Bal Harbour police, it was a whirlwind: cops jetting to Las Vegas, Chicago, Phoenix, Los Angeles with the goal of seizing millions
from criminals.
Two flew on first-class flights while two others went business class to California, where they stayed in the wine country of Temecula
Valley.
In just one month, the villages police helped reel in $3 million and by the end of the year, they took more dollars from drug dealers
than any police force in Florida.
While small police departments rarely venture beyond their borders, Bal Harbours force has become a massive cash generator,
infiltrating drug organizations across the country with no connection to the coastal village.
Armed with a team of snitches and undercover cops, the vice unit makes few arrests, but seizes a fortune in cash every year.
Now, the special unit is under federal investigation for its handling of millions in seized dollars, including hundreds of thousands paid to
snitches, questionable expenses and missing financial records.
In a rare move, agents have frozen millions that Bal Harbour helped confiscate under a program that allows police to seize the riches of
criminals and keep a cut of the proceeds.
For the past year, the village has been forced to turn over reams of records in a grueling audit thats now under review by U.S.
Department of Justice prosecutors.
Bal Harbour Police Chief Thomas Hunker, who was subpoenaed in March, said his unit has never broken the law.
Since 1994, Ive had not one incident where anything is missing, said Hunker, 61, who has been chief since 2003. We have a standard
operating procedure and a policy and sign-in logs that we have to maintain control.
Hunker, an unsuccessful candidate for the Miami Beach chief job this year, blamed much of the probe on jealousy by federal agents.
Sometimes we give them cases. Sometimes we dont. If we dont give them a big case, and we get a big hit, they get pissed. Its
competition.
But even before the investigation, the villages forfeiture fund came under scrutiny in May by its own auditors, who found questionable
expenses, poor accounting and a lack of oversight.
Al Treppeda, the village manager and former police chief, did not return a phone call on Friday, referring all questions to the police.
Now, federal agents are looking at the flow of money into the town including plainclothes cops toting bags stuffed with cash on airliners
and later counting it in a police trailer.
For years, the department of 27 officers, serving a village of 2,574 people, has run its forfeiture program like an ATM machine, tapping
into a network of informants who led police to the cash.
And for years, the money rained on Bal Harbour: $100,000 for a 35-foot boat powered by three Mercury outboards, $108,000 for a mobile
command truck equipped with satellite and flat-screen TVs, $25,463 for next generation Taser X-2s.
There was $7,000 for a police chiefs banquet, $45,839 for a Chevy Tahoe, $26,473 for Apple computers, $15,000 for a laser virtual firing
range and $21,000 for an anti-drug beach bash.
The biggest pay $624,558 to snitches over the past four years.
Not until the government temporarily banned the village early this year from sharing in forfeiture dollars did the flow of money stop.

No ones told me that were not in compliance, said Hunker, who estimated the feds have frozen nearly $30 million.
Hunker insists the audit turned up only accounting errors and violations of vague guidelines that govern the use of forfeited dollars, and
all expenses were approved by village attorneys and council.
But in fact the probe has shifted from a routine audit to a sweeping investigation, with the findings under scrutiny by the DOJs Asset
Forfeiture and Money Laundering office.
Matthew McCloskey, a special agent who led the probe for the DOJs Office of Inspector General, declined to comment on the probe.
For months, agents have been peeling back layers of the units undercover details, including spending on hotels, car rentals and firstclass flights.
In just one month, records show police plunked down $23,704 mostly on trips to Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix, and Tampa
including two first-class flights to California and rentals of a Cadillac SRX and a Lincoln Town Car.
Hunker declined to talk about investigations, but said he encourages his officers hauling cash to go first class and drive luxury cars on
undercover details.
If you are showing up to pick up a half million and youre using that as an undercover vehicle, are you going to show up in a Dodge
Dart? he asked.
However, the first-class flights and Cadillac rental were not part of an investigation, but a funeral for a fellow officers son and a meeting of
law enforcement agents, records and interviews show.
Gun in the toilet
One of the trips caught the attention of California police who investigated a loaded handgun found in a public bathroom of a hotel in
Riverside County the gun later returned to a Bal Harbour cop who had left it in a handicap stall.
The trip took place just four days before the DOJ notified Bal Harbour of the audit.
Bal Harbour is among more than a dozen agencies that have come under scrutiny in the federal program created in 1985 to allow police
to partner with the feds in criminal cases even sharing in the bounties of seized assets.
Though the program gives wide latitude to cops, it also imposes rules on how those monies are seized as well as spent.
Most of the undercover investigations follow a familiar course: Cops or snitches turn up tips about dope traffickers across the country
looking to launder money.
In many cases, they share the information with federal agents in places where the money is supposed to change hands.
In the past nine months, auditors have put the village through the most rigorous review it has ever faced, with demands for bank
statements, payroll records, ledgers and receipts.
For the first time, agents have demanded explanations for the thousands of dollars doled out to snitches, as well as payroll records for
two Bal Harbour cops stationed in Southern California and Charlotte County on Floridas west coast.
Though the village tapped into forfeiture funds to pay the two salaries, federal law prohibits police from relying on those dollars to cover
the payroll of cops who work seizures.
Hunker insists the two cops are contract workers who play the critical role of managing snitches.
Two people who spoke to The Miami Herald on the condition of anonymity said agents are looking into whether Bal Harbour cops abused
their authority by fronting cash to snitches even before money was seized breaking federal law.
Hunker said his officers will give dollars to informants, but the money doesnt come from forfeiture funds. The confidential informants, if
we want to keep them active, every once in a while, we do throw them some money, he said.
He said the dollars come from drug dealers who pay undercover cops to help them launder money or transport drugs.
The reason were successful is because of that team and because of our informants, he said.
In all, the team has helped take in $19.3 million from criminals in the past 3 1/2 years in more than a half-dozen states and Puerto Rico,
with the village raking in $8.35 million.

Hunker said the squad does more in the war against drugs by hitting the dealers where it hurts the most: their pockets.
However, several experts said the villages practices raise disturbing questions about cops targeting cash rather than criminals and
operating thousands of miles from Bal Harbour.
In 2010 alone, village cops took part in 23 cases leading to $8.2 million in seizures all outside of Florida without law enforcement
agents making a single arrest, records show.
You lose sight of the law enforcement purpose when youre concentrating on the money, said Neal Sonnett, a Miami attorney and
former president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. The profit purpose is very dangerous.
More than a decade ago, a South Florida task force got into trouble after authorities said it was laundering as much drug cash as it seized
and made no significant arrests. One member was accused of taking kickbacks and commissions from informants $625,000 his first
year.
Hunker, who led that same task force in the years before it ran into trouble, claimed his current problems with the feds stem from politics.
He said he has frequently worked with local DEA offices in New York, New Jersey and Atlanta in big cash seizures, causing trouble with
the Miami DEA office.
The rub is we dont give it directly to Miami, he said. This is a very competitive business just like any other business. If you look at our
stats, were killing em.
However, Scott Bullock, who litigates forfeiture cases across the country, said the reason the feds are putting pressure on Bal Harbour is
to make sure the police are not abusing their authority.
These monies should not be turned into basically slush funds to be used at their discretion, and its broad discretion, whether its to buy
equipment or host parties, said Bullock, who co-wrote Policing for Profit for the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit law firm in Virginia.
What is, isnt legal
Whats not clear is whether Hunker is permitted to use cash from criminals the funds he says are now paying for his cops to carry out
investigations, including travel to cities across the nation. The credit card bills are paid from that pot of money, Hunker said.
Known as trafficker-directed funds, Hunker said the dollars come from bad guys who pay his undercover cops for services.
But several experts say police are not legally allowed to tap into that money which is evidence unless they get federal approval.
David Macey, a former Miami-Dade prosecutor who represented the South Florida Money Laundering Strike Force, said cash from
suspects has to go through the courts.
You cant just stockpile it and then loan it for other purposes, he said. Usually the police dont keep dirty money.
Sgt. Jim Cox, who runs the asset forfeiture unit for the Fairfax County, Va., police, said his unit locks that kind of money away as evidence.
When paying for undercover work, we use operational funds, that come from taxpayers, he said.
Federal agents looking into Bal Harbour have yet to release their findings, now under review by Justice Department lawyers in
Washington.
Sonnett, who has challenged money seizures in court, said the government is responsible for investigating a program that gives vast
powers to police.
There has to be controls, he said. Theres a danger of potential abuses. Law enforcements primary purpose is not the financial reward.
Provided By: The McClatchy Company
Index terms: U.S. Department of Justice; Bal Harbour Police; Office of Inspector General; The Miami Herald; National Association of Criminal Defense
Lawyers; Institute for Justice; Justice Department
Locations: Temecula Valley
Personal names: Thomas Hunker; Al Treppeda; Chevy Tahoe; Matthew McCloskey; Lincoln Town Car; Neal Sonnett; Scott Bullock; David Macey; Jim
Cox
Record: 201210272237KNRIDDERFLMIAMIH_34342bbf978e4fe8c2d878d7b23f7501
Copyright: Copyright (c) 2012 The Miami Herald