How a McDonald's receipt crippled an elite drug-fighting team
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/how-a-mcdonalds-receipt-crippled-an-elite-drug-fighting-team/ar-AAyPxc6?li=BBnb7KzNarcotics Detective Kyle Willett made the 10-minute drive to a McDonald's drive-thru for sweet tea and cheeseburgers before returning to work — and doing something no one expected.
Alone in his white Chevrolet Tahoe — outside the UPS global shipping hub where he worked with an elite task force to intercept drug shipments — Willett tore the packing tape off a box, pried open a metal safe and stole piles of cash totaling about $40,000.
But the Louisville Metro Police veteran, well trained in exposing criminals' missteps, made an elementary mistake of his own.
He used his credit card for the $4.76 McDonald's meal and then forgot to remove the receipt from the fast-food bag he crumpled and stuffed inside the box before sending the package on its path to Oakland, California.
Willett didn't know that a West Coast drug interdiction task force anxiously awaited its delivery. A judge had already signed a search warrant to allow investigators to open the package, as it was expected to contain valuable evidence.
The box should have helped investigators snag a drug trafficker. Instead, it netted a cop. It also exposed questionable practices by two other detectives and for 19 months sidelined a task force charged with interrupting a major drug pipeline during the nation's worst drug crisis — blamed for more than 400 deaths in Louisville last year.
"We were missing a lot of drugs with this task force not up and running," said Russell Coleman, U.S. attorney for the Western District of Kentucky.
Many narcotics detectives trusted Willett.
Lauded as one of Louisville Metro Police's most accomplished detectives, Willett was once featured on the true crime TV show "The First 48," discussing key evidence seized in a double homicide.
And sometimes when the task force supervisor couldn't be on site, he was left in charge.
But in June 2016, the phone rang at the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office. California police were on the other line with details about how their drug investigation hit a snag when the $40,000 in cash, their evidence, was stolen.
Investigators in Louisville tracked the last four digits of the credit card printed on the McDonald's receipt to Willett. And a restaurant security camera showed his white Tahoe, bought by the police department, pulling out of the drive-thru at the same time printed on the receipt.
Federal agents hid surveillance cameras inside Willett's SUV that August and began watching the task force's movements at UPS Worldport. The next time Willett stole cash from a box — and there was a next time — it was captured on video.
The felony theft case against Willett was mounting as the FBI and Louisville police's Public Integrity Unit teamed up to investigate.
The probe into one man's actions soon spread to an inspection of an entire task force charged with keeping drugs off the streets.
The team had worked hard to earn a coveted federal designation in the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program, which provides money, training and resources to those policing the most saturated areas. It united five members from LMPD, one from Kentucky State Police, three from the Jefferson County Sheriff's Office and one part-time agent from Homeland Security Investigations.
They hunted for drugs in packages flown through UPS, Fed-Ex and the United States Postal Service — intercepting many poisons in 2016, including 50 pounds of heroin — about a day's supply for 22,500 addicts. They also found 197 pounds of cocaine and 190 pounds of meth.
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