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Ex-Police Sergeant Who Robbed Dealers, Sold Drugs Found After 14 Years: FBI

By Kelly Bauer | September 20, 2017 11:57am
 Eddie Hicks, a former Chicago police sergeant, went on the run for 14 years but was recently taken into custody in Detroit, according to the FBI.
Eddie Hicks, a former Chicago police sergeant, went on the run for 14 years but was recently taken into custody in Detroit, according to the FBI.
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Courtesy FBI

CHICAGO — A former Chicago police sergeant who was on the run for 14 years has been found in Detroit, according to the FBI.

Eddie Hicks, 68, was taken into custody on Tuesday.

The FBI has been searching for Hicks as part of an international manhunt since 2003, and he's expected to be extradited to Chicago. Hicks, a 30-year Chicago Police Department veteran, was part of a group of people who posed as DEA agents, robbed drug dealers and sold drugs, according to an FBI news release.

The longtime narcotics officer retired from the Police Department while under federal investigation in March 2000, according to the Associated Press.

Hicks and four others created fake search warrants and pretended to be DEA agents so they could get into "stash houses" to take money, drugs and other valuables, according to the FBI. The five sold the drugs they stole to drug dealers and split the profits, the FBI said.

A "major cocaine dealer" helped Hicks and other members of the group find targets for the robberies, according to the Tribune. The robberies went on for a decade, but the dealer was caught by the FBI and then told the agency about his work with the group of robbers.

Hicks was supposed to appear for trial in June 2003, but he never showed up, according to the FBI. Three of four members of the group had pleaded guilty to their charges by then, according to the Tribune. Hicks is the only member of the group who hadn't gone to trial.

While in hiding, Hicks gave his son, a Chicago police officer, a South Side property, and he and wife cashed or had deposited more than $300,000 of his police pension checks by 2011, according to a Tribune investigation. Hicks' signature was on the land records that granted his son the property and also appeared on checks cashed by his wife during the years he was on the lam.

Hicks was charged with RICO conspiracy, narcotics conspiracy, extortion conspiracy, possession of a firearm in furtherance of a narcotics conspiracy and theft of government funds, according to the FBI.