{"id":2996,"date":"2025-10-14T18:37:44","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T18:37:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/2996\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T18:37:44","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T18:37:44","slug":"affidavit-nbc-6-south-florida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/2996\/","title":{"rendered":"Affidavit \u2013 NBC 6 South Florida"},"content":{"rendered":"

A former Hialeah Police chief arrested on grand theft and fraud charges<\/a> deposited over $2 million in cash into bank accounts during his tenure and spent lavishly on everything from Rolex watches to a Mercedes lease as petty cash and seized drug money vanished from the department, according to an arrest affidavit.<\/p>\n

The 43-page affidavit details what led to Monday’s arrest of Sergio Velazquez on charges including organized fraud, grand theft and structuring transactions to evade reporting or registration requirements. All are first-degree felonies because they involve more than $100,000.<\/p>\n

The charges apply to only $635,000 missing from police department coffers since June of 2021, within the four-year statute of limitation for first-degree felonies.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Booking<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\tMiami-Dade Corrections<\/p>\n

\t\t\tMiami-Dade Corrections<\/p>\n

Booking photo of Sergio Velasquez<\/p>\n

But according to the affidavit, the city of Hialeah cannot account for some $2.6 million transferred by the city to the police department for drug investigations and another $1 million missing from cash seized from suspected criminals, all while Velazquez was the city’s top cop.<\/p>\n

Velazquez served as Hialeah’s chief of police from 2012 until November of 2021, and was arrested following a lengthy Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation.<\/p>\n

According to the affidavit, after Velazquez was relieved of duty<\/a>, the department was unable to account for large amounts of “petty cash” utilized by the HPD Special Investigations Section for narcotics investigations that was disbursed during his tenure.<\/p>\n

Records showed that between 2015 and 2021, around 100 petty cash checks were cashed totaling over $2.8 million, but of that amount only about $209,000 was ever documented as legitimate expenditures, leaving nearly $2.6 million unaccounted for, the affidavit said.<\/p>\n

Between 2016 and 2021, over $1 million from 20 court-awarded civil forfeitures also went missing, the affidavit said.<\/p>\n

The cash was never submitted to the property unit and was instead held in a safe in Velazquez’s administrative suite that only he and a couple others had access to, the affidavit said.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tA former Hialeah Police chief was arrested on Monday on allegations of committing organized fraud and grand theft during his tenure, officials said. NBC6’s Steve Litz reports\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

During this same time, bank accounts controlled by Velazquez were used to deposit large amounts of cash in amounts less than $10,000 to avoid currency reporting requirements, the affidavit said.<\/p>\n

During one period from Dec. 21, 2020 to Nov. 30, 2021, 9 petty cash checks totaling $352,000 were issued and cashed to fund police investigations, but $307,000 of that amount went unaccounted for.<\/p>\n

About $526,000 in cash seized by the department that was court-ordered to be deposited to the Law Enforcement Trust Fund was not deposited, investigators found.<\/p>\n

Another $235,000 ordered by the court to be retained by the department for investigative costs was also largely unaccounted for, the affidavit said.<\/p>\n

Investigators also found that over $76,000 in cash seized by the department between Aug. 24, 2021 and Oct. 8, 2021, went missing from evidence packages.<\/p>\n

In fact, over $1.1 million in cash is missing or unaccounted for in 2021 alone, the affidavit said.<\/p>\n

During that time, over $293,000 was deposited into bank accounts controlled by Velazquez, and after the money was deposited, payments were made to credit card companies for a total of $265,000, the affidavit said.<\/p>\n

About 10 days before Velazquez was relieved of duty as chief, the cash deposits stopped, the affidavit said.<\/p>\n

Investigators said Velazquez made structured cash deposits utilizing four different accounts at four different banks, and sometimes as many as three banks would receive deposits in the same day.<\/p>\n

The affidavit documents multiple instances where cash was seized during undercover drug busts but tens of thousands went missing from sealed evidence bags.<\/p>\n

In all, between 2015 and 2021, 922 cash deposits totaling over $2.18 million were made into bank accounts owned and controlled by Velazquez while he was employed as chief, the affidavit said.<\/p>\n

Of the 922 deposits, none were for over $10,000.<\/p>\n

Velazquez’s salary was $210,000 at the time of his removal.<\/p>\n

In 2015, Velazquez had incorporated an electrical business, but records showed the only reported wages earned by him came from the police department, the affidavit said.<\/p>\n

But two business bank accounts showed about $257,000 in cash deposits between April 2016 and April 2022, despite there being no record of the business performing any permitted work in Florida, the affidavit said.<\/p>\n

Business credit card purchases were made at a luxury watch retailer, Cartier, Louis Vuitton, Versace, Saks Fifth Avenue, Watches of Switzerland and Sephora, totaling over $77,000, the affidavit said.<\/p>\n

Records showed a dozen credit cards were used by Velazquez in his name or the name of his business.<\/p>\n

On April 20, 2021, Velazquez bought 2 Rolex watches, one for $6,304 in cash and the other for $68,632, splitting the payment between $30,000 on one credit card and $38,632 on another, the affidavit said.<\/p>\n

The affidavit said investigators found Velazquez had also leased a 2021 Mercedes.<\/p>\n

Velazquez was booked into jail but appeared before a judge on Tuesday, where he was granted a $30,000 bond<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former Hialeah Police chief arrested on grand theft and fraud charges deposited over $2 million in cash…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[225,227,226],"class_list":{"0":"post-2996","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hialeah","8":"tag-hialeah","9":"tag-hialeah-headlines","10":"tag-hialeah-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}