A Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputy who taught life skills to the formerly incarcerated through a county program is now suspected of working with a former student to transport 45 pounds of cocaine and 13 pounds of methamphetamine from Pasadena to Las Vegas.

Deputy Sheriff Kenneth Collins, of Chino, and three others allegedly agreed to take $250,000 from an undercover FBI agent in exchange for providing security for the caravan, according to the Department of Justice. Their arrest near the Rose Bowl on Tuesday followed two other faked drug transports that were part of the same sting, according to the indictment filed in federal court last week.

“We’re cops,” Collins allegedly told the agent. “All of our transports make it through.”

Collins was arrested alongside David Easter, 51, of Los Angeles, Maurice Desi Font, 56, of Los Angeles, and Grant Valencia, 34, of Pomona on suspicion of conspiracy to distribute controlled substances.

U.S. Attorney Nicola Hanna said in a statement that the sting was part of an FBI effort to “root out corruption, particularly when it involves sworn law enforcement.”

“Deputy Collins sold his badge to assist an individual he thought was a drug trafficker,” U.S. Attorney Nicola Hanna said in a statement. “The deputy allegedly used his status as a law enforcement officer as a guarantee when he promised safe travels for large quantities of illegal narcotics.”

Valencia was part of Collins’ “Emerging Leaders” classes, an LASD program teaching life skills to adult probationers or parolees to keep them from re-offending. In a 2014 interview with the San Gabriel Valley Tribune during a class in La Puente, Collins said he grew up poor in South Central before joining the military and later LASD at its Lennox station.

Emerging Leaders required him to share his own faults and troubles to connect with the students on a personal level, he said.

“I was so used to putting my foot on their neck,” he said at the time. “This was kind of foreign to me. It goes against what we do — our profession.”

Collins was a 15-year member of LASD, officials confirmed, and was recently assigned to the County Services Bureau. He was placed on administrative leave following his arrest. The department has started a process to suspend him without pay.

An LASD statement released Tuesday afternoon said “the allegations presented are very serious and of great concern.”

“When allegations of criminal activity involve law enforcement, we have systems in place to root out misconduct in the organization and any Department member who chooses to violate the law and public trust,” officials said in the statement.

According to Tuesday’s indictment, Collins spoke at length during recorded conversations about his extensive drug trafficking network, his past criminal conduct and his willingness to accept bribes in exchange for using his badge to help criminals. He said he had teams of people, including other law enforcement officers, who provide security for illegal marijuana grow houses and drug transports.

He allegedly told the agent, who was posing as a wealthy investor in grow houses, that his team is willing to beat people for cash.

The indictment states Collins showed the agent his badge and a gun tucked in his waistband during their first meeting in August 2017.

“I fix problems,” Collins said, according to the indictment. “I make a lot of things go away.”

He allegedly took $2,000 to look up the address and driver’s license number of someone for the agent. Collins is alleged to have told the agent he once flew to Boston and lit someone’s truck on fire to send a message.

During a test run, Collins received $6,000 in exchange for sending Easter to deliver two pounds of marijuana to a second undercover agent, the indictment alleges. Collins then offered to facilitate the sale of up to $4 million in marijuana every month to the agent.

In November, Collins and his team were paid $25,000 to transport methamphetamine, marijuana and counterfeit cigarettes to Las Vegas. Collins allegedly boasted that he’s “been doing this for years” and never gets stopped.

The transport was recorded, according to the indictment. The indictment states Valencia, Collins’ former student, said in a recording the transport was not “his first rodeo” and claimed to have worked with cartels from “down South.”

The men then agreed to do the bigger deal, for $250,000, this month. Collins promised to bring Easter, Valencia, and at least one other law enforcement officer, who turned out to be Font, according to the indictment. Cellphone records showed Collins called Valencia, Easter and another LASD deputy about the deal, according to the indictment. The other officer is not named.

Font was expected to be charged by federal prosecutors in a second criminal complaint later Tuesday, but it’s unclear if he is also a member of law enforcement.

Paul Delacourt, the assistant director of the FBI’s Los Angeles field office, said Sheriff Jim McDonnell worked cooperatively with the FBI throughout the investigation and noted that other deputies brought the “unlawful activity to our attention.”

McDonnell confirmed in a tweet that it was department employees who tipped off the FBI investigators.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department brought this unlawful misconduct to the attention of federal investigators and are working with the Department of Justice (DOJ). More to follow in an @LASDHQ statement pertaining to the arrest of a Deputy. — Jim McDonnell (@LACoSheriff) January 16, 2018

La Puente Councilman David Argudo, a supporter of Emerging Leaders in his city, said he shocked by the arrests. In 2014, Argudo was pictured with Valenica during one of Collins’ classes. Valencia was preparing to go to a job interview.

“It’s unfortunate that it sheds a bad light onto a program that has helped a lot of people,” Argudo said. “I still keep in touch with a lot of those who graduated from the Emerging Leaders program and the majority that finished, that I’m aware of, are working and being productive members of society.”

Argudo said he could not recall how he met Valencia, but he was the one who suggested the former felon join Collins’ class. Valencia had recently had a bad break up with a girlfriend living in La Puente and Argudo thought Emerging Leaders might help, he said. The program reportedly had less than a 7 percent recidivism rate in 2014.

The councilman described Collins as a person who sought to inspire others and called his arrest a surprise.

“Not knowing all the facts, it’s difficult to comment on specifics, but like I said, it’s unfortunate,” he said.

The Sheriff’s Department distanced itself from Emerging Leaders Tuesday — spokeswoman Nicole Nishida said in an email that the department had a relationship with the program in 2014 when both Collins and Valencia participated, but that ended in 2016.

The Association for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs, which represents rank-and-file LASD employees, released a statement Tuesday saying “as outraged as the public may be over these accusations … the men and women of the Sheriff’s Department are twice as upset.”

“We urge the public not lose faith in the vast majority of deputies who every day demonstrate their commitment to the community with their honesty, integrity, bravery and hard work,” ALADS officials said in the statement.