Six men, some of them drug dealers, drove north from Robeson County a couple of years ago to kidnap two Virginia men, prosecutors say. The suspects thought the Virginia men had $450,000 in cash hidden inside a black Chevrolet van.

At a gas station in Norfolk, prosecutors say, the men jumped out of a red, four-door sedan with badges around their necks and guns in their hands, yelling that they were the police.

In fact, two of those eventually charged were in law enforcement. They were deputies with the Robeson County Sheriff's Office.

The deputies also were on the payroll of the drug dealers, according to an attorney for one of the deputies.

Corruption in law enforcement has long been suspected in Robeson County, a sprawling county along the South Carolina line. Robeson is plagued by a high murder rate and a widespread drug problem that is fed by trafficking along Interstate 95. Robeson ranks 21st in population among North Carolina's 100 counties, but its sheriff's department ranks first in the state in cash received per capita as part of the federal drug forfeiture program in the past three years.

In 1988, Robeson captured headlines when Native American activists Eddie Hatcher and Timothy Jacobs took employees hostage at the Robesonian newspaper in Lumberton. The men demanded an investigation into local and state officials' involvement in drug trafficking.

Almost two decades later, the Robeson County Sheriff's Office has been roiled by state and federal investigations that have led to charges against nine former deputies involving arson, assault, drug trafficking, robbery and kidnapping dating to 1997.

That includes the February 2004 kidnapping, where prosecutors say two deputies helped drug dealers handcuff the Virginia men, cover their eyes with duct tape, load them into the van and head south along I-95. When the caravan stopped for gas in Selma, the two men escaped.

Police were called, and the kidnappers fled. A Selma police officer found a badge labeled "Security Officer" by a gas pump.

Selma police didn't know what they had stumbled upon. But a year later, one of the drug dealers implicated the two deputies. About the same time, federal and state agents were investigating the activities of deputies in the drug unit in the Robeson sheriff's office.

One former deputy has admitted taking about $150,000 during traffic stops along I-95. Another admitted embezzling $25,000 from the office's drug asset forfeiture fund. Prosecutors are trying to seize a 2002 Harley-Davidson motorcycle and a 2002 Ford F-250 truck that they say another deputy purchased with stolen money.

Deputies assist dealers

The deputies in the drug unit were investigated as part of a federal and state inquiry called "Operation Tarnished Badge." Among the many criminal charges are allegations of setting fire to people's homes and businesses, stealing tens of thousands of dollars seized during traffic stops, and paying informants with drugs.

"You just almost cannot make up the litany of things that it appears this drug unit had been doing for years," said Raleigh lawyer Joseph B. Cheshire V, who represented one of the nine deputies who have faced charges.

Defense lawyers who represented drug defendants in Robeson County say their clients had been telling them for years that the drug unit's deputies were taking a cut of the cash seized from them.

"The first time you hear that, you are skeptical," said Lumberton lawyer Carlton Mansfield. "The second time, you think this guy must have talked to the last guy. The third time, you wonder if there is a school out there for drug dealers. The fourth time, you wonder, 'What are those guys doing?' "

Mansfield said he expressed his concerns to then-Sheriff Glenn Maynor in the late 1990s, but nothing happened. Maynor, who resigned in 2004 citing health problems, did not respond to requests for an interview.

Sheriff Ken Sealey, who came into office in 2005, did not return repeated phone calls.

The two deputies who were accused of taking part in the Virginia kidnapping were not members of the drug unit. They investigated crimes involving juveniles. One of the two, Patrick Ferguson, has pleaded guilty to his role in the kidnapping and is cooperating with investigators, said his lawyer, Robert Nunley of Raleigh.

Nunley explained that Ferguson started having financial problems in 2002 and became suspectible to lucrative offers from drug dealers and the officers working with them.

Here is how Nunley says the deputies assisted drug dealers: Tipped off by local dealers, the deputies would conduct traffic stops on people delivering drugs to the dealers. The deputies would seize the drugs, deliver them to the dealers and be paid for their efforts, Nunley said. At other times, the dealers would have the deputies stop people who had made their drug deliveries and been paid in cash. The deputies would seize the cash, return it to the dealers and get paid, Nunley said.

"There were a number of people involved in drugs who ... took advantage of their connections with law enforcement to have their cake and eat it too -- to sell the drugs and get their money back and conversely to get the drugs at no cost," Nunley said.

Beyond that, Ferguson and Deputy Vincent Sinclair, along with several drug dealers, were charged with committing the Virginia kidnapping. Sinclair is also accused of holding a drug dealer hostage until a $150,000 ransom was paid and of lighting another dealer's arm on fire.

The county copes

Some Robeson residents expressed surprise at the number of deputies facing charges.

"I think we're all getting shocked," said Jerry Stephens, a businessman, soon-to-be Robeson County commissioner and president of the local NAACP branch. "You expect every once in awhile to have one case, possibly maybe two. We've got so many. We don't know how to take all the corruption down here. ... There's gossiping and talking at the coffee shops about who is going to be next."

Robeson County District Attorney Johnson Britt said more criminal charges are possible.

But the indictments have rippled through the courthouse. Britt said his staff had to dismiss charges against as many as 300 drug defendants because they cannot prosecute crimes based on the testimony of indicted deputies. They have discovered one man who was wrongfully convicted in a drug case, Britt said.

Britt says suspicions rose as the deputies appeared to be living beyond their means.

Britt, who has served as the county's chief prosecutor for 12 years, says a combination of factors led the deputies to commit crimes: a large county geographically, a high crime rate and a small department where deputies have long tenure and become familiar with the criminals.

"It's a combination of things that breeds corruption," Britt said.