In December 2012, a retired, highly decorated U.S. Coast Guard warrant officer offered a man who worked for him his choice of either $20,000 or a kilogram of cocaine as payment for killing a Marathon real estate representative.
The good news for the real estate rep, Bruce Schmitt, was that the hit man was an informant cooperating with a federal cocaine smuggling case in which the retired warrant officer, Dennis Zecca, was the target. When the informant told his handlers at the Drug Enforcement Administration about the plot to kill Schmitt, the agents told the FBI.
The FBI contacted Schmitt and staged his murder, fake blood and all.
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