Environmental Crime-Busters Get Busted

by Te-Ping Chen · 2010-03-12 10:40:00 UTC
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You won't find their telegenic agents gracing the teasers for CSI Miami, wrestling suspects to the ground. But across the country, the work of environmental crime units is an essential, if often overlooked part of law enforcement.

Apparently, though, that message skipped the Miami-Dade police department. Today, the Miami Herald -- after reviewing some 2,000 pages of departmental memos and receipts -- announced that the head of the county's environmental crime unit had been using the unit (earmarked with $5 million) as the department's personal ATM machine for years.

The purchases that the Herald chronicles range from the irrelevant to the patently absurd. They include the $4,600 purchase of sunglasses (stated reason: eye protection), six flat-screen TVs (some bought for $2,000 apiece) and over $30,000 in spending on items including 30 banquet tables. Oh, yes -- and over $173,000 to finance the purchase of 125 computers like Panasonic Toughbooks (retailing for a hefty $3,000 each). Which the Miami-Dade police department says they can't locate or identify who they were issued to.

The department also used the green fund to purchase $423,000 worth of SUVs, supposedly to help investigators traverse difficult rural roads. Instead, the cars went to top leadership in the department (who later said they didn't know where the cars came from, and returned them). The unit also rented up to 18 cars at a time, for a whopping total of $300,000.

Sure, Smokey the Bear isn't exactly who you conjure up when imagining a cop on the beat. But environmental crime is a growing issue -- not just in the U.S., but overseas as well -- and like any other crime, it's an issue of public safety. All told, environmental crimes -- from wildlife poaching to illegal logging to chemical dumping -- are netting crime rings some $10 billion a year. Miami's got a bad reputation as the nation's "drum dump" capital in particular, with multiple cases a week arising in which hazardous chemicals and waste were illegally dumped, jeopardizing the county's drinking water and overall health. (The county's Hazardous Materials Unit has investigated over 1,000 such cases over its tenure.)

It's an angry day for Miami-Dade taxpayers, but hopefully one that can also be used to highlight the importance not only of keeping officials honest, but also of keeping environmental crime on the public radar. To that end: did you know that the Environmental Protection Agency has a most-wanted list of criminal fugitives? They do. Check it out, and learn more about environmental crimes, here.

Photo Credit: artwork_rebel

Te-Ping Chen Te-Ping Chen is a freelance writer and U.S. Truman Scholar whose writing has appeared in the Nation Magazine, the South China Morning Post magazine, Le Soir, and Slate.com.
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