DETECTIVE ALLEGEDLY TOOK DRUG MONEY

NEW YORK - The arrest appeared by-the-book: Two men in NYPD
windbreakers, their guns drawn, grabbed a drug dealer carrying a black
shoulder bag on a Queens street. One peered in side the bag and gave a
thumbs-up.

But authorities allege the scene was really a robbery. They say both
men, including a veteran detective, planned to pocket the bag's
contents: $169,000 in drug money.

The detective, Julio Vasquez, 43, and a retired officer, Thomas
Rachko, 45, were awaiting arraignment Wednesday in a corruption case
that disrupted an unrelated money-laundering probe of a Colombian drug
ring.

A federal complaint filed in Brooklyn alleges the men lied to
investigators. Separate state charges accuse them of grand larceny and
other offences.

Calls to defense attorneys were not immediately returned.

Police officials said Vasquez resigned this week after 18 years on the
force. An internal investigation was under way to determine whether
more officers and more robberies were involved.

The alleged scheme was inadvertently uncovered by the El Dorado Task
Force, a team of local officers and federal investigators that had
been trailing the dealer in the separate money-laundering probe.