A police officer posed as a Burger King employee in Maryland for two months to try to bust up suspected drug dealing at the restaurant.
The operation resulted in two arrests, though it was a relatively small bust: All the officer found after two months on the job were 5 grams of marijuana and two morphine pills, The Frederick News-Post reports.
The officer who went undercover was Nicole Fair, who joined the Thurmont, Maryland, police department in July.
Around the same time, the police department started hearing rumors that people were selling drugs in the parking lot of the local Burger King.
So the department asked Fair - who wasn't well known enough in the community to be recognized - to go undercover.
Fair applied for a job at the Thurmont Burger King with a résumé that excluded her law enforcement experience, according to The News-Post. Burger King hired her in August.
During Fair's tenure at Burger King, two workers sold her drugs: Tommy Lee Miller, 23, of Thurmont, and Jonathan Brook Moser, 28, of Emmitsburg, according to police.
Miller and Moser were arrested in September. Miller was charged with the possession and distribution of marijuana, and Moser was charged with the sale of both marijuana and morphine, according to police.
Possessing under 10 grams of marijuana in Maryland isn't a criminal offense - meaning it doesn't result in an arrest, jail time, or a criminal record. A first offense carries a fine of $100.
The charges, therefore, were a result of the workers selling the drugs to the officer.
Some people have criticized the department for spending so much time on a bust that turned up such a small amount of drugs.
"A complete waste of time and energy," Patricia Edison wrote on Facebook.
"What an insane waste of taxpayer dollars. This police department should just be disbanded," Phil Quinn wrote on Twitter.
But Fair said the undercover work and arrests were "extremely rewarding."
"I was hired to help and protect the community of Thurmont, and that was what I was doing," she told The News-Post. "You hear about all the drug problems we're having here and elsewhere and, whether it's marijuana or something else, we're really feeling the effects of it."
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