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May 22, 2009 11:36 pm US/Eastern
200 Arrested In Broward County Sting Operation
FT. LAUDERDALE (CBS4) ―
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Law enforcement officers busted people for selling drugs and selling their bodies for sex.
CBS4 News
Two hundred people are facing criminal charges in Broward County after a two-day law enforcement sweep involving deputies from the Broward Sheriff's Office and police officers from Ft. Lauderdale, Hollywood and Lauderhill.
"We target these people who are making the honest citizen miserable by breaking into their house or robbing them," said Broward Sheriff's Office Captain Jim Fondo. "We want the criminals to be on their toes."
Law enforcement officers busted people for selling drugs and selling their bodies for sex.
In one case, the Broward Sheriff's Office SWAT team arrested a man and woman in North Lauderdale for selling marijuana. They also confiscated five guns from the couple's home.
A man in Tamarac also faces drug charges after deputies found drugs, a gun and $15-thousand in cash in his house.
Fondo said working together with multiple agencies allows law enforcement to send a clear message.
"We wanted to make a statement over a couple days to send a message to these communities that we are working together," Fondo said. "This community has law enforcement officers that work very, very hard to put criminals in jail to try to make the quality of life better for this community."
Deputies also busted 20 women for offering massages online through several websites, including Craigslist and other sites. When the women arrived they also offered to commit sex acts for money, deputies say.
"Once they get into the massage, they go a little further and get into a prostitution-related act," Fondo said.
Deputies also asked each person arrested to give a DNA sample. That gives law enforcement a chance to keep that person's information on file and compare that person's DNA to unsolved crimes.
The multi-agency sweep came just three days after Broward Sheriff Al Lamberti announced the layoffs of dozens of employees due to the economic downturn. In a statement, Lamberti said the recession will not give criminals a free pass.
"We have fewer deputies than we did two years ago, and we may have to make do with fewer next year, but the drug dealers and prostitutes are going to think we've multiplied," Sheriff Lamberti said. "We're not going to let crime go up just because the economy has gone down."
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