"They had a damned problem, " said prosecutor Walsh, who alerted other police agencies about the BSO operation. "What if one of these guys went out and killed someone?"

The operation opened in November 1989 in the bustling Lauderdale Lakes Industrial Park. Five undercover deputies worked for "C&C Traders, " wheeling and dealing in stolen property from a double-bay garage.

Most of the customers came from Fort Lauderdale -- young thieves hungry for money. Willie Gibson, then 17, was a ringleader. He had plenty of pals, among them Mitchell Gibbs, Quinton Hannah, Jackson Morris and Darrin Walls, all 18 at the time.

Gibson, now serving a 12-year sentence, said he thought he was working for the Mafia. At the start, he said, one of the men gave him $1,000 and asked for a favor.

"He told me to bring in my friends, young boys who could steal cars, " Gibson said in a telephone interview. "All of us knew each other. We grew up and got drunk together."

The sheriff's operation kept Gibson and his friends rolling in money for months, paying as much as $2,200 for a stolen car.

"They kept telling us to keep on bringing in the cars, " Gibson said. "Anybody would do it for that kind of money."

Between November 1989 and February 1990, they sold at least 30 cars to the BSO squad. After each sale, deputies let them leave, though they knew some of the cars had been stolen in robberies. The thieves bragged to undercover deputies about waving chrome-plated pistols and threatening to shoot motorists.

With a seemingly endless source of cash, the teens became more daring and more dangerous, sticking up motorists in mall parking lots, outside stores and even in the shadow of the county courthouse.

The BSO warehouse was quickly stuffed with stolen cars. Sgt. Capone decided it was time to prosecute some cases.

Assistant State Attorney Walsh was called to Trade Winds' headquarters on Jan. 24, 1990. Walsh is a gatekeeper at the state attorney's office. He decides whether police have proved their cases.

He was stunned. Though Trade Winds had been in business nearly three months, there was not enough evidence to file a single case. The BSO files lacked basic documents needed to win arrest warrants -- sworn statements from detectives and victims, and police incident reports.

Walsh said Capone refused to get statements from victims, arguing they might compromise security. But without the statements, Walsh said, he couldn't show property was stolen.

The next danger sign came Feb. 13. Walsh found a BSO report that said one of the thieves admitted using a firearm during a heist. Walsh warned the deputies that the department could get sued if an innocent victim was hurt.

He said his warnings were ignored; the robbers remained on the street.

Capone insists that Walsh said it was all right to simply send anonymous tips to CrimeStoppers, hoping other deputies would make the arrests.

That didn't happen. Instead, the crime wave became more and more violent. By the last week of February 1990, Gibson and his pals were stealing as many as three cars a day.

Feb 26: Gertrude Fuchs is sitting in her 1989 Nissan Maxima outside a Publix in Lauderhill when Gibson and Gibbs put a pistol to her face. They sell the car to sheriff's deputies for $375.

Feb. 27: After stealing Bernard Greslin's 1990 Toyota Supra in Oakland Park, Gibson goes to the BSO warehouse and shows an undercover deputy the .357 Smith & Wesson revolver he used in the stickup. Gibson collects a $700 check.

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