Alex Chapackdee is a veteran officer for the Seattle Police Department. He, along with three others, have been charged by the U.S. District Court of Seattle with interstate drug trafficking. The officer was suspended without pay and sits in detention awaiting trial. A conviction carries a five-year minimum in federal prison (up to 40) and a fine of up to $5 million.

Officer Chapackdee allegedly transported hundreds of pounds of cannabis from Washington to Baltimore. The details of the accusation were released in a 15-page unsealed document and included multiple trips involving upwards of 200 pounds at a time. Friends and family were shocked by the accusations during the early court proceedings.

If the grand jury indicts him, his May 22 court date will be moved. Until then, Officer Chapackdee will be spending his days in detention. Assistant U.S. Attorney Vince Lombardi said the serious allegations and significant penalty warranted detention for all four defendants.

Recreational weed is legal in Seattle but not in Baltimore.

Chapackdee’s Seattle attorney, David Gehrke, asserted that his client would fight the allegations. He went on to claim the federal criminal-justice system was pursuing a “dark ages” approach. One where marijuana crimes remain on the books even though “it’s legal to use and possess in every state on the West Coast.”

But possession and use of recreational marijuana is a crime in Maryland. A fact the police officer was privy to before smuggling his shwag there by the metric ton. The charges claim he was transporting more than just weed, he was providing cocaine and intelligence as well.

With six trips recorded just since September, he clearly wasn’t doing it to make ends meet. An informant revealed to the FBI and Drug Enforcement Agency that Chapadee provided the ringleader (his brother-in-law) information about arrests and investigations that could affect the operation. But Chapackdee claimed he made the other people front the shipments as though that made him look any better.

At least the officer made sure he was getting paid.

As bad a police officer getting caught trafficking drugs is, at least he was doing it for the money right? It seems money made Chapackdee chose Baltimore as one of the places he peddled his police pot. Reports claim he was getting paid $15,000 or more each time he made a drug run.

In addition to the $30 grand each month from drug runs, the officer was getting another $10 thousand dollars a month just to keep an eye on the operations grow houses. So the official cost of a crooked cop in America is $40 grand a month. Chapackdee WAS part of a five-member community policing team.

The policing team Chapackdee operated in was part of the police department’s South Precinct. Seattle Police Chief Kathleen O’Toole issued a statement calling Chapackdee’s conduct “disgraceful and disappointing.”