A plea agreement in federal court reveals a search warrant was issued for yet another Guam Police Department officer relating to drug trafficking. The revelation in a case against convicted drug trafficker Franklin Calvo provides a glimpse into an ever-widening conspiracy of dirty cops under investigation (or with charges that have yet to be publicly disclosed) by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for abusing their police powers.
On January 29, 2021, Franklin Calvo was arrested and later charged for trafficking methamphetamine in Guam. The following year, Mr. Calvo signed a sealed plea agreement and began cooperating with the federal government against other targets of investigation.
Earlier this week, his attorney – Rawlen Mantanona – filed a statement to the court explaining the extent of his cooperation in order to reduce the amount of time he will be sentenced to spend in prison.
“Calvo’s consistent collaboration with law enforcement, providing crucial information and engaging in multiple discussions, highlights a genuine effort to aid authorities in addressing and preventing further criminal activity,” Mr. Mantanona asserted.
Then he added: “Federal warrants were issued against a Guam Police Department Officer that Calvo provided information about.”
No documents publicly available on the federal court system’s archive system name the police officer, or provide any hints as to whom he or she may be. But the timeline of Mr. Calvo’s cooperation against this police officer falls outside that of GPD officer Brian Awa, on whom Kandit earlier this week reported federal warrants in 2020 were issued against related to meth trafficking.
Several federal warrants and criminal cases remain sealed on the docket of the U.S. District Court of Guam, signaling scores – if not hundreds – of active investigations and cooperation of defendants against other defendants and targets of federal investigations.
GPD remains silent on Awa
GPD acting spokesman Sgt. Paul Tapao earlier this week said he believed Mr. Awa had separated from the department, and that he was awaiting a statement from the department about the revelations in federal court and whether GPD officials knew about the investigation.
Local documents filed in the Guam Legislature, however, reveal Mr. Awa remains a GPD officer within the drug detection K-9 unit of the agency. A required filing of every agency to disclose whether employees have taken mandated ethics training shows earlier this year that Mr. Awa was an employee and had not taken the training. Another mandated agency filing to disclose overtime hours also shows Mr. Awa was a GPD employee as late as October this year.
Mr. Awa and the yet-to-be-named police officer under investigation according to the Calvo documents are the latest in an ever-growing list of former and current police officers accused of corruption and police brutality.
Chris Barnett, the senator with oversight of the GPD, has said he is planning an oversight hearing on the matter.
