Feds: Ex-Evanston cop became ‘double agent’ inside DEA

Federal prosecutors in New York want a former Evanston detective held behind bars, insisting he later joined the Drug Enforcement Administration as a “double agent” who had no intention of upholding the nation’s drug laws.

Rather, they said Fernando Gomez agreed with one of the founding members of a murderous drug gang that they could become “unstoppable” if he joined the DEA.

That gang member, known as “Tony Zinc,” then successfully dodged the feds for years until his arrest earlier this year by the FBI.

“Gomez’s plan worked,” prosecutors said.

The feds made their comments in a letter to a judge ahead of hearings set for Thursday in New York and Chicago to consider whether Gomez should be set free while awaiting trial.

Gomez was arrested in Chicago last week, when he was named in an indictment that connected him to the gang known as La Organizacion de Narcotraficantes Unidos, or La ONU. It accused him of participating in a drug conspiracy dating as far back as 2006, and using a gun to do so. If convicted, Gomez faces life in prison.

The document accused Gomez of joining the DEA to help Jose Martinez-Diaz, also known as “Tony Zinc,” avoid prosecution. It also alleges that Gomez, while working as a detective in Evanston, got guns from drug dealers and delivered them to Martinez-Diaz in Puerto Rico.

“Gomez applied to the DEA in 2010 and became an agent in 2011,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Jordan Estes wrote in the letter filed Tuesday. “As such, when Gomez swore to uphold our nation’s drug laws, he never had any intention of doing that. From the beginning, he was a double agent.”

The indictment unsealed last week ties the La ONU gang to six murders in Puerto Rico.