- Operation Guard Shack
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Operation Guard Shack was an two-year FBI investigation into law enforcement corruption in Puerto Rico.[1] The operation came to a conclusion on 6 October 2010 with a series of predawn raids that led to over 130 [2] arrests of members of the Puerto Rico Police Department, various municipal departments, and the Puerto Rico Corrections Department.[3]
The operation began at 3 a.m., when 65 tactical teams, including SWAT and the Hostage Rescue Team (HRT), fanned out across the island in a series of sneak attack arrests. On hand were a range of Bureau personnel—crisis negotiators, evidence response team members, canines and their handlers, and 80 medical personnel from first responders and nurses to a trauma surgeon and a veterinarian.
The central thread of the corruption was law enforcement officers providing protection and other services to drug traffickers. Over 1,000 agents of the FBI conducted the raids. Many of them were flown in secretly. The agency characterized the action as, "likely the largest police corruption case in the FBI’s history."[1]
Indictments announced on 6 October included:[4]
- 61 officers from the Puerto Rico Police Department
- 16 officers from various municipal police departments
- 12 officers from Puerto Rico Department of Corrections
- 44 others associated with agencies including the US Army, Puerto Rico National Guard, and the Social Security Administration
The accused officers face a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.
References
Categories:- FBI operations
- Political corruption investigations in the United States
- Puerto Rico stubs
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