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Fourteen current and former law-enforcement officers are part of twenty individuals charged taken into custody in the states of Mississippi and Tennessee for taking illicit payments from drug traffickers in to provide police protection, in what officials labeled "a monumental betrayal of public trust".

These apprehensions follow a years-long probe by national law enforcement who acted as narcotics dealers. Two of the defendants were county sheriffs from Mississippi.

Federal officials set up the undercover operation after hearing complaints from actual drug traffickers about being forced to provide bribes to police members.

The bribery network reportedly reached outside the Mississippi Delta region into Memphis, Tennessee, and Miami, Florida.

"The original complaints that began the investigation were from narcotics traffickers," a U.S. attorney announced during a press briefing on Thursday.

Some of the officers had accepted illicit payments between $20,000 (£15,000) and $37,000, the legal official added.

This operation involved undercover federal agents acting as drug dealers with fake narcotics, which the defendants allegedly believed to be 25kg (55lb) of the illegal substance.

"They betrayed the public," stated a high-ranking federal agent. "They betrayed the confidence that the public placed in them, shamed the badge and weakened the efforts of good law enforcement officers across this state and region."

These detentions take place as American authorities have embarked on aerial attacks in the southern continent against suspected narcotics criminals.