Although it sounds just like the script of a classic police movie, FBI agents tricked 15 Illinois law enforcement officers on Tuesday and caught them providing protection for drug traffickers in suburban Chicago. The FBI sting ended with the law enforcement officers being charged with numerous counts which included being remunerated for providing armed protection for drug dealing operations and for high-stakes gambling.

Two of the charged officers helped an undercover FBI agent unload and deliver duffel bags which contained drugs. The bags had been flown in on a private plane.

“Ideally, it should be hard to find one corrupt officer,” said Patrick J. Fitzgerald, United States attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, “and it should never be easy to find 15 who allegedly used their guns and badges to protect people they believed were dealing drugs, instead of arresting them.”

The list of law enforcement officers charged after the FBI sting includes 10 Cook County sheriff’s correctional officers, four officers with the suburban Harvey Police Department and one Chicago police officer. Two other men who pretended to be law enforcement officers were also charged.

The pilots of the private airplane that carried the bags stuffed with a total of 176 pounds of cocaine were also undercover FBI agents. The agent who was posing as a drug broker paid the two officers who escorted him $4,000 each. The undercover FBI agent paid a total of $44,000 to 16 of the defendants.

The FBI sting also caught police officers providing security for a high-stakes poker game. They were making sure the large sums of cash needed for the gambling were transported safely, said Robert D. Grant, special agent in charge of the Chicago office of the F.B.I. the gamblers were undercover FBI agents as well.

“The almost systemic corruption that this investigation uncovered is quite troubling, especially given that most of those charged are sworn law enforcement officers,” said Mr. Grant.