Five NYPD cops were busted in a sting operation for smuggling illegal guns and supposedly stolen slot machines, cigarettes and counterfeit goods, the feds said Tuesday.
A criminal complaint details schemes by a cabal at Brooklyn's 68th Precinct to betray their badges with help from on-the-job cops, retired officers and civilian pals.
"The complaint describes how a group of crime fighters took to moonlighting as criminals," Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said.
"How a gang of police officers who should have been keeping guns off the street instead smuggled 20 firearms into the city, and how a number of men once charged with enforcing the law are now charged with breaking it."
Mayor Bloomberg said if the charges prove to be true "it would be a disgraceful and deplorable betrayal of the public trust."
The allegedly corrupt cops were snared by a confidential informant on the FBI payroll - and caught on tape hatching and carrying out the off-duty misdeeds.
"I'm getting a good army set up here," Officer William Masso, 47, bragged to the informant about his growing crew, according to one recording.
Prosecutors say Masso was the ringleader and met the informant in late 2009 when he was looking for someone who would "fix" traffic tickets.
Before long, the complaint says, Masso was offering to do a lot more than make a few summonses disappear.
By early 2010, Masso and the informant were talking about selling contraband, including illegal cigarettes, court papers say.
The cop said he had done it before - raking in $5,000 a week by selling cigarettes with fake tax stamps he got from an American Indian reservation.
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