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Left: Francisco Melo (Miami-Dade Sheriff). Right: Port of Miami where Mello allegedly tried to smuggle 50 MDMA pills onto cruise ship (PortMiami).
A Florida police officer landed himself behind bars after he was busted with 50 pills of the party drug commonly known as molly or ecstasy as he tried to board a cruise ship set to host a dance party.
Authorities had already been honing in on 36-year-old Francisco Melo, a six-year veteran of the Miami-Dade Sheriff’s Office, after they received a tip that he was selling pills, according to a probable cause arrest affidavit obtained by Law&Crime. On Dec. 20, cops sent a confidential informant to buy 12 pills of MDMA — also known in different forms as molly and ecstasy — for $240.
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The informant told investigators that Melo was set to board the Royal Caribbean Allure of the Seas cruise ship on Jan. 22 at PortMiami while smuggling the ecstasy pills inside Skittles packages. The ship was set to have a four-day dance music festival. Detectives obtained an arrest warrant and intercepted Melo as he was exiting his car in the port parking lot.
A police dog named Roxi sniffed Melo’s luggage and alerted her human handlers of possible drugs. Cops allegedly found six Skittles bags, five of which they say were stuffed with molly. There were 50 pills in all, per the affidavit.
It appeared to be from the same batch of MDMA pills that the informant bought in December, cops noted.
Melo was arrested on a charge of trafficking in MDMA and taken to the Miami-Dade jail. When he bonded out, he refused to answer any questions and ran away from the reporters waiting for him.
The sheriff’s office has relieved him of duty.
“Narcotics don’t just harm those who use them, they devastate families, and fuel crime,” Miami-Dade Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz said in a statement. “No one is above the law, and this office will not tolerate criminal behavior from anyone, especially those entrusted to enforce it. The actions of this individual are a betrayal of the public trust and of all the deputies who work tirelessly to protect our community.”
