After Operation Uphold Democracy in 1994 (the U.S.-led intervention that toppled the brutal and corrupt Haiti military dictatorship that had ruled the country since a 1991 coup), the Haitian National Police was established. By 1997, it was reported that an estimated 6,000 police officers "were trained at a U.S.-funded academy to replace the army and tens of thousands of paramilitary police, auxiliaries, and informers" used in the period of military rule. However, through the 1990s and 2000s, the police force continued to suffer from serious corruption problems; police have engaged in excessive force, theft, drug trafficking, kidnapping rings and politically motivated killings.