BOGOTA, Dec. 19 (UPI) -- A former high-ranking Colombian police officer has been arrested for using the highway patrol to escort drug shipments, the BBC reported Friday.
Last month, Col. Jaime Leal was relieved of his post as head of the highway police after evidence emerged that his division of officers was riddled with corruption. Sixty-nine officers were put under investigation.
The accusation comes after two policemen escorting a vehicle were stopped and 185 pounds of coca base, which is crystallized into cocaine, were found in the vehicle.
The two policemen said they were simply following the orders of Leal to see the vehicle safely to its destination.
The police force has been engulfed in corruption scandals which last month cost the jobs of five of the force's top generals.
Earlier in the year, it was discovered that police on the Caribbean coast had sold three tons of seized cocaine back to drugs traffickers.
