The narcotics officers from the 83rd Precinct didn’t get much when they set up outside the J & C Mini Market on Irving Avenue in Brooklyn on an autumn afternoon four years ago.

Moving in on what seemed to be a crack deal, they seized two packets, which turned out to contain little more than a residue of the drug. Two men — said to be the buyer and the seller — were arrested, but the charges against one of the men were eventually dismissed.

What the officers did get that day was more than 20 hours in overtime for hauling in and processing the men. Collectively, court papers say, they earned as much as $1,400 in extra pay.

[Harry Levine Queens College Professor who documented the way the NYPD arrested most black and brown New Yorkers for pot exposes another police drug war scam]