Flakin' guys

There's a line in the film by Lt. Hanes about "flakin' guys" (his fear that Buddy's non-legal crime-fighting tactics will lead to trouble). I don't know if anyone out there knows what "flaking" is, so here's my understanding of it.

During the late 50's through mid-70's (the heyday of the NYPD narcotics squad then known as SIU - Special Investigation Unit), a narcotics detective could roam the entire city looking to make arrests (unlike a precinct detective who is only authorized to make collars in his precinct) and investigate drug activity wherever he saw it. The dirty practice of flaking is when a narc sees someone he suspects of drug activity and decides to give the perp a toss. The cop will sometimes carry drugs of his own so that if he finds nothing, he will plant his stash on the suspect and continue with the arrest. What can go wrong for the cop is if he plants, say, heroin, on a known marijuana merchant, making the DA's prosecution job more difficult.

Purportedly, Eddie Egan (of "French Connection" fame) was a known practitioner of the flake, getting away with who knows how many dubious arrests.