Ordered DEA internal investigators not to interview the Bovers. DEA Special Agent in Charge Mazzilli and prosecutors acknowledge that agents failed to find the 10 kilograms during the search, that it took too long to turn in the drugs that were seized, and that agents erred in filing incomplete reports about their conversations with the Bovers. However, prosecutors say they had five witnesses who corroborated their theory that it was the Bovers who took the cocaine and sold it behind the agents' backs. Kiki Bover and his brother Ramon were indicted on those charges in December. Prosecutors dropped the case in March after a federal judge ordered them to turn over all records in the case.
Prosecutors say they dropped it in part because a key witness was charged with unrelated crimes.
The case centers on the Bovers, who ran Amarily's Bakery at 12759 SW 42nd St. in West Dade as a front for a lucrative drug-smuggling operation. He once operated a homemade fake ID factory, and has spent nearly half of his life in the United States in prison on various charges. They had no idea in November 1998 that DEA case agents Russell Davis and Mark Minor, who between them have seven years of experience at the DEA, had been secretly listening to their phone calls for a month. On Nov. 12, they decided to get it. With help from a group of Metro detectives they work with routinely, Group 6 searched the house for five hours.