Policy

Crime in Florida Town is Very Organized — By the Police

An Opa-locka police captain ran a local drug ring

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Drug dealers pedal their bicycles up and down the street, sneaking down narrow hallways and hiding in the bushes, waiting for their next deal, or their next victim to shake down, beat up or rob. Doors are pitted with bullet holes, and the children spend their days on a rusty playground, or in the evenings, acting as lookouts for dealers.

This squalid theater in the heart of Opa-locka's Arabian Nights-themed city, an apartment complex known as the "Back Blues," has been home to some of the most dangerous drug traffickers in South Florida.

When the FBI launched a sting at the notorious drug den, and later tied its players to a fatal 2010 armored car heist, they discovered to their surprise that one of the alleged operatives at the helm of the Back Blues narcotics ring was an Opa-locka police captain.