I hate to say it but that scandal doesn't come close to the Morgan Co. Connection scandal in KY. The sheriff of the county was bought off, judges were bought and get this - the state police commissioner was a ring leader. The deal was that drugs were flown in to a small airport in Morgan Co.. They supplied almost the entire east coast with cocaine and pot at the time. That's why they gave it the name Morgan County Connection because it was like the French Connection.
But I know of similar incidents in Ohio where the state patrol and the sheriff and the local city police along with judges were all being paid by a drug dealer. The feds eventually busted the guy, who was selling Oxycontin and the LEO's counted like 150 people a day going into his house either to sell him the pills they got from doctors or to buy pills.
Then there's places like Detroit where (yes I've been picking on Detroit because I'm ticked off at that city big time - gang bangers from there have invaded my home town selling heroin among other things). I have no doubt that they pay people off too. The stories are there. Serpico busted a huge corruption ring in the NYPD. The mob kept the entire government bought off for years. Al Capone was the worst mobster of all time and he certainly wasn't from Appalachia.
Corruption is not something that is limited to that part of the world. Heck the mob ran Russia for 10 years. Europe was ran by thugs for 700 years. Yet you want to claim that Appalachia is somehow worse than the rest of the world? I don't think so.
I'm certainly not in favor of criminal behavior anywhere. I just don't think we have a monopoly on it. Not by a long shot. Let's talk Miami in the 1980's. Let's talk the Mexican border right now. Good grief the things that go on here now pale in comparison to those things. No one is flying planes into the Morgan Co. airport now. That ended in the early 80's. But go down to one of the border towns on the Mexican border and watch what goes on. Appalachia is far from the worst place for crime. It's not even close. Gangs are relatively unknown here or they were until the Detroit gangs, looking for new markets for their drugs, started making the trip to my area. Here's a story that is just an example of what's happening here. FWIW I saw a more recent story that involved even more heroin coming into Huntington.
http://www.wsaz.com/news/headlines/...-80000-Heroin-Bust-in-West-End-238295831.html
It's almost entirely gangs from Detroit that are responsible for the heroin in my area. I probably see an average of one bust per week of people from Detroit bringing heroin into this area. I could give you links to more stories but this one should be enough.
BTW there is an ongoing criminal organization in the town right next to where I grew up. They have been operating for decades. They were the actual kingpins of that Morgan Co. operation. They almost got busted once but they pinned everything on a scapegoat and they skated. I would tell you where they operate but to be honest they scare the crap out of me. They were killing people when I was a kid. Nothing has changed. The world is full of corruption. No one area has a monopoly on it. And my area is no worse than other areas. In fact I'd say it isn't as bad in spite of the corruption that I know is part of the region.