Small town, big deal.

• Author: Krayewski, Ed
• Position: Caracas connection - Money laundering in Bal Harbour police departments, Florida - Brief article

BAL HARBOUR, a village just north of Miami Beach, has a population of just 2,600--and a police department that took it upon itself to investigate the international drug trade. Between 2010 and 2012, a police task force there conducted a money laundering sting operation, eventually moving more than S50 million and sending much of it overseas while making no arrests.

Last year, a Miami Herald investigation revealed that Bal Harbour cops had sent more than $4 million to accounts in Venezuela, including one associated with William Amaro Sanchez, an aide to Nicolas Maduro, the foreign minister at the time. Maduro is now president of Venezuela. The department never informed the federal government, as...