Growing up, many kids are told to find a police officer if they need help.
It's a lesson Demarco Alonzo Thomas took to heart.
Thomas was an alleged drug courier who said he misplaced $20,000 in drug money and wanted authorities to write him an excuse note so a Tucson, Ariz., cartel wouldn't kill him, the Associated Press reported.
In November, when Thomas, 30, was traveling through Tucson International Airport from North Carolina when he reported misplacing the money, according to a search warrant requested by the Tucson Airport Authority Police Department.
Fearing for his life, he called police to ask if an officer could write a note to the local cartel explaining that he lost $20,000 in drug money; he thought it might smooth things over if he could show cartel members a phony receipt from the local police stating they had seized the money, the Arizona Daily Star reported.
But when police searched his belongings, they found $17,000 in a pair of pants and another $3,000 in his wallet, Geobeats reported.
The unsympathetic officers arrested him on suspicion of money laundering and racketeering.
Thomas isn't the only man who has reached out to the long arm of the law only to be arrested. Recently, New Hampshire police arrested Scott Pipher after he called them to complain a woman he'd hired "shorted him by 10 minutes."
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