Watch CBS News

Wiretapped Calls Expose City Cop Facing Life For Heroin Ring

BALTIMORE (WJZ)—Rogue cop. WJZ goes inside the drug operation that stretched from Baltimore and around the world.

Just unsealed wiretapped conversations expose the inner workings of that heroin operation. At the head: a city cop prosecutors say was dealing drugs while on the job.

Mike Hellgren investigates a trail of evidence that stretched more than 5,000 miles.

The feds say Officer Daniel Redd would speak in coded language, making deals worth tens of thousands of dollars and providing armed protection while in uniform--never believing he'd get caught.

Federal authorities say couriers would make the 11-hour flight from Accra in Ghana, Africa to Dulles International Airport. Runners would then take the drugs to Baltimore, and that's where city officer Daniel Redd comes in.

Prosecutors allege his supplier Tamim Mamah worked with Redd to get the heroin to street-level dealers.

"The couriers made $415,000 per trip, so they made a lot of money off of it," said Neil H. Macbride, U.S. Attorney Eastern District of Virginia.

A court affidavit details coded, wiretapped conversations and says you can hear the officer's police radio under some of them.

In one deal he tells Mamah, "Yeah, that's all it's going to be...200...for me...The rest for you.  I get a little piece.  You get the whole shabang."  Who replies . . ."We all eat these little peanuts until we hit the big brick."

 

Prosecutors say Redd got one of his shipments of heroin at what he believed was a secret meeting outside the Exxon at Cold Spring Lane and Falls Road. It was almost $40,000 worth.

They say he provided protection to a dealer nicknamed Bit, who was afraid she'd get stopped by police, telling her: "I mean, he [the officer] Shouldn't give a ****... Because I'm on y'all side...  That's a lot of cash.  You gotta make sure some ****** ****** ain't on that."

"We just can't give quarter to corruption," said Commissioner Fred Bealefeld, Baltimore City Police. "We can't and won't, and we will exhaust every means and every resource to eliminating it from our ranks." 

On Facebook, Redd says his favorite movie is "Training Day," where Denzel Washington plays a crooked narcotics officer who thinks he's above the law. The defense says Redd is not. He now faces life in prison.

City police contacted the FBI when they first got tipped to the corruption. Redd will be in court Friday morning.

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.