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A Chicago police officer is accused of accepting money funds in trade for lending out his department-issued encrypted radio, Illinois Legal professional Basic Kwame Raoul introduced Tuesday. Alain M. Dillon, 37, faces a number of counts of bribery and official misconduct.
Dillon took a number of $500 funds from an unidentified particular person in trade for private entry to Dillon’s CPD-issued radio, Raoul stated, with out saying who used the radio or for what objective.
Dillon has been underneath investigation since June 2024 and has been working stripped of police powers in an workplace that takes police studies over the cellphone.
Encrypted radios are high-tech gadgets that can not be heard on publicly out there handsets or scanners. CPD encrypted most of its radio channels starting in late 2022, a transfer then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot stated was needed to stop criminals from monitoring police actions in real-time. Town streams encrypted radio channels on-line with a 30-minute delay.
Events excited about accessing CPD’s encrypted radios, which value $2,500 apiece, vary from tow truck drivers hoping to reach first at visitors crash scenes to gang members to information reporters.
In September 2024, officers patrolling the Humboldt Park neighborhood noticed a tow truck heading west on North Avenue with no entrance plate, with no firm identifiers on the car, and with a closely tinted windshield, in line with a CPD report.
As they started following the truck, the motive force pulled into an alley behind the 3400 block of West Potomac. The officers stated they noticed the motive force get out, put one thing underneath a blue rubbish bin, and drive away.
Curious, they regarded underneath the bin and found a high-tech CPD radio labeled “Property of Metropolis of Chicago” and bearing a metropolis stock quantity. The officers caught up with the tow truck and pulled it over within the 1300 block of North St. Louis. Its driver, 46-year-old Ismael Claudio Jr., admitted to possessing the radio, in line with his arrest report.
Claudio pleaded responsible to misdemeanor theft of misplaced or mislaid property in January 2025 and efficiently accomplished a conditional discharge program, in line with courtroom information.
Earlier than encryption, tow truck drivers generally used emergency radio scanners to find out about visitors crashes so they might race to the scene and receives a commission to haul away a car. However scanners can not decrypt encoded radio transmissions.
Shortly after town started encrypting police radios, there was a flurry of incidents wherein thieves swiped radios from the entrance desks of Chicago police stations. In a type of circumstances, a migrant who was dwelling in a CPD station advised police {that a} identified gang member supplied him $1,000 for a police radio able to receiving encrypted transmissions.
Throughout his mayoral marketing campaign, Brandon Johnson stated he would restore the general public’s real-time entry to CPD radio exercise. He has not achieved that.
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