ATLANTA, Ga. -- Investigators are calling it the biggest corruption case they've seen in the Atlanta area in 20 years.
Ten current and former law enforcement officers across several metro Atlanta agencies have been charged in an undercover police corruption investigation.
Federal agents from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives made most of the arrests Tuesday morning.
Channel 2 Action News crews were at the FBI Atlanta office as several suspects were taken into custody.
They are accused of taking thousands of dollars in payoffs to drug dealers.
Seven of the 10 officers arrested have posted bond. The final three are expected to head to court Friday.
According to the criminal complaint, some transactions happened in a barbershop in a busy shopping center.
Channel 2's Rachel Stockman went to the Forest Park Police Department Wednesday where two of the officers involved worked.
They are now facing federal charges.
According to a criminal complaint, they worked together on a number of deals to provide protection to the drug dealers.
Stockman obtained six department-issued photographs after 10 current and former officers were arrested on federal corruption charges.
They look very different in uniform, than they did when Channel 2's cameras exclusively captured video of officer after officer in handcuffs being brought into federal custody.
According to a criminal complaint, as many as six of the deals were arranged at the Faith Barber Shop on Caroline Street in southeast Atlanta.
Stockman showed the workers at the shop a picture of veteran Atlanta police officer Kelvin D. Allen.
"Have you seen him here before?" Stockman asked shop owner Michael Odum.
"Yes," he replied.
"Do you remember what he is like," Stockman asked.
"He used to patrol the area of here, that is all I know about him," Odum answered.
MARTA police officer Marquez Holmes is also accused of arranging drug deals at that same barber shop.
According to the complaint, at one point DeKalb County police Officer Dennis Duren was willing to use his patrol vehicle to protect a drug transaction but that the cost would be $3,000 instead of the originally agreed-upon price of $2,200.
Stockman tried to track down many of the officers Wednesday, but so far hasn't been able to get their responses.
Five of the 10 officers arrested in the corruption case came from one metro county.
Federal investigators arrested two DeKalb County police officers, two former DeKalb County sheriff deputies and a Stone Mountain officer in the sting.
Channel 2's Ryan Young spent the day asking what the department leaders are doing in the aftermath.
Police officials told Young the officers would pass backpacks from car to car to do the deals in public parking lots.
"Sometimes they go astray, and when that happens we clean house," DeKalb County Sheriff Thomas Brown told Young.
Brown said he's warned his deputies about stepping on the wrong side of the law, but said there's an important fact about the corruption arrest made by the federal agents.
"These two officers have been away from our family at least three years," Brown said.
The longtime sheriff told Young he will review each part of this investigation once it's over.
"Moving forward, we need to have the checks and balances in place, to make sure all uniforms are collected or if they have badges then they should only have one as well," Brown said.
Two DeKalb police officers, Dennis Duren and Dorian Williams, were also arrested by federal authorities.
Both were patrol officers.
Interim Police Chief Lisa Gassner released a statement saying, "It is incomprehensible why these officers chose to aid and abet these criminals when they are sworn to protect our community from such offenders.
These officers do not reflect the character of the hundreds of DeKalb County police officers that wear the badge."
"Close to 50,000 officers throughout the state of Georgia, eight were the actively involved. Those are really small numbers," Brown said.
Investigators said Officer Dorian Williams used his police car, even off-duty, to protect some drug deals.
In one line of the complaint, investigators note he wanted to use high school parking lots because no one would raise questions about what was in the backpacks used to make money and drug drops.
