ALBANY (AP) — Albany County’s sheriff has disbanded his department’s drug interdiction squad after questions were raised about how it spent money.

The move by Sheriff Craig Apple followed stories in the Times Union newspaper disclosing that the unit had used funds seized from criminals to purchase take-home vehicles for its investigators.

The squad also rented a former Beaux-Arts bank building in a historic district as a headquarters at a cost of $120,000 per year.

The unit’s tactics had also been criticized. In 2009, the county paid $125,000 to settle a lawsuit by a bus passenger who was stripped and forcibly sedated so investigators could search his body for drugs.

Apple told the newspaper the department wasn’t turning its head on drug activity, but would focus resources on other crimes.