The retired rogue - who was allegedly caught with his partner robbing a drug courier of $169,000 - wants to cut a deal with federal prosecutors, the Daily News has learned.

Rachko's cooperation could open the door to a wider scandal in the Northern Manhattan Initiative drug unit, where Rachko and his former partner Julio Vasquez used to work, according to a source familiar with the case.

Rachko and Vasquez are charged with staging a brazen heist of the drug money on Nov. 26 in Queens.

But the keystone crooks stumbled into the middle of a secret federal money laundering probe, prosecutors say.

At Rachko's arraignment in Brooklyn Federal Court, a prosecutor said the ex-detective had a gambling problem.

Rachko's lawyer, David Goldstein, declined to comment.

Vasquez's lawyer also declined to comment.

Sources said Rachko claims he threw the money away.

It is unclear whether the feds buy that story, but investigators need his help to learn what he knows about additional crimes and dirty cops.

Shocked cops and federal agents who witnessed the heist allowed Rachko and Vasquez to drive off with the knapsack stuffed with money after the pair falsely claimed they were on official business, prosecutors say.

Vasquez, an 18-year-veteran assigned to the NYPD firearms investigations unit, was on duty at the time of the heist.

He had told a lieutenant that he was going out for a sandwich, then picked up Rachko in an unmarked NYPD auto and drove out to Queens to meet the courier and an informant who had tipped them to the Colombian drug cash, according to prosecutors.

Sources said the feds approached Vasquez after he was arraigned.

But they said flipping him could be tricky because he has privately retained a lawyer from the detectives' union.
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