The mess was such that within the rank and file of the National Police, company captains would forge memos and assign as many as 30 police officers to high-ranking officers. Under the law that governs the National Police, major generals are assigned 15 officers, generals are assigned 10, colonels get three, and majors have just one agent at their beck and call. All told, according to the Hoy newspaper, this would total just 1,644 members of the police force. Even so, there are hundreds more assigned to the service of retired police chiefs, and other retired generals and colonels. These irregularities were discovered during an audit of the personnel ordered by current Police chief Bernardo Santana Paez. The audit found 400 police assigned to high-ranking officers in a highly irregular manner. However, the mess goes beyond mere over-assignments. In many cases, the high-ranking officers didn’t know that they were “supposed” to have so many police assigned to them. Apparently, according to the paper, the real culprits were those captains and sergeants who “assigned” personnel to service with some general but, in reality, used the men in different jobs.