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Undercover sting busts Miami cop shaking down suspects for money, drugs, feds say
Federal agents arrested an officer with the Miami Police Department after he was caught in an undercover sting trying to extort suspects for cash and drugs, officials with the U.S. Department of Justice said Friday.
www.local10.com
Undercover sting busts Miami cop shaking down suspects for money, drugs, feds say
Chris Gothner, Digital JournalistPublished: November 17, 2023 at 4:00 PM
Updated: November 17, 2023 at 4:10 PM
Frenel Cenat (BSO)
MIAMI – Federal agents arrested an officer with the Miami Police Department after he was caught in a sting trying to extort suspects for cash and drugs, officials with the U.S. Department of Justice said Friday.
Officer Frenel Cenat was at the Broward Main Jail on Thursday, accused of using his unmarked police car to conduct a traffic stop on a driver who he thought was a drug trafficker carrying cash. Prosecutors said the 40-year-old officer was tipped off about the driver from a man he believed was also a drug trafficker.
What he didn’t know is that the tip was part of an operation to catch him — and the driver behind the wheel wasn’t a drug trafficker. Instead, he was an undercover federal agent, authorities said.
In the first traffic stop, on Nov. 3, “Cenat identified himself as ‘Officer Martez’ of the ‘Miami PD – Dade County Narcotics Unit,’ told the driver that he had been investigating him, and then gave the driver the option of giving Cenat the backpack filled with $52,000 in $100 bills or going to jail,” prosecutors said in a news release.
Prosecutors said the officer “then took the bag of money, let the driver leave, and met up with the individual who told him about the deal, giving him $13,000 and keeping the other $39,000.”
DOJ officials said Cenat then arranged another shakedown attempt with that same man, asking if he had anyone else they could steal drugs and money from.
He was then directed to pull over an undercover agent in the Deerfield Beach area that he had been told “would be transporting both money and (seven) ‘bricks,’ a street term for kilograms of cocaine,” prosecutors said.
On Nov. 16, he’s accused of pulling over the agent and, this time, pretending to work for the Broward Sheriff’s Office, giving the driver the choice of giving up the drugs and money or going to federal prison.
But Cenat may be going to federal prison instead. Prosecutors said he took $80,000 in $100 bills and 7 kilograms of fake cocaine from the undercover agent and allowed him to leave.
“When Cenat arrived at the location arranged for the split of the proceeds, he was arrested, and the 7 kilogram-shaped packages and a large quantity of $100 bills were found in his official MPD vehicle,” the news release states.
Cenat, who lives in Boynton Beach, is facing federal charges of Hobbs Act extortion, attempted extortion under color of official right, theft of government funds and attempted possession with intent to distribute cocaine.
He’s set to face a Fort Lauderdale federal judge on Nov. 28.
MPD Chief Manny Morales issued a statement on the arrest shortly after federal authorities announced it Friday afternoon: