On a balmy summer night in July 1985, during the height of the Miami Vice popularity, eight men dressed in police uniforms stormed a boat on the Miami River, surprising six men who were unloading several million dollars’ worth of cocaine.
At first, it appeared to be a police raid, but when one of the officers shouted, “kill ‘em”, the cocaine traffickers on the boat knew it was something more sinister and began jumping overboard.
The men raiding the boat did not go after the men jumping overboard. They were not interested in making arrests. They were solely interested in the cocaine – 350 kilos in all – with a street value of $9 million.
The following morning, the bloated bodies of three men were found floating in the river behind Jones Boat
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But it wasn’t long before investigators determined that these were real cops who had committed the rip-off. Real cops who had committed the murders.
Real cops who would go down in history as the Miami River Cops – or as they liked to call themselves, “The Enterprise” – the most notorious gang of corrupt cops ever to don the badge in Miami.
Within a month after the bodies were found floating in the river, ten Miami police officers were being investigated. By the end of the year, five cops had been arrested.
By the time it was all over, more than 100 cops have been arrested, fired, suspended or reprimanded for corruption, coercion and cocaine rip-offs unveiled during the Miami River Cops investigation, including 20 who were convicted and sent to prison.
Today, the Miami River Cops have all been released from prison, including two that became fugitives in 1987 and were not apprehended until 1994.
At least one was sent back to prison after committing a string of armed robberies in