Maxwell Dent

Maxwell Dent is the main antagonist of Beverly Hills Cop II.

Biography
Much of Maxwell Dent's background is unknown, but it is indicated that he was an East German in origin; in the Seventies he served as a cultural attache for the East German embassy in Honduras. He eventually retired to Beverly Hills, California with the money he had accumulated, and established himself as a respectable business man majoring in oil production.

However, in time Dent's businesses failed and he faced total bankruptcy. In order to cut his losses and recuperate his fortune, Dent struck a deal with arms dealer Nikos Thomopolis to purchase and ship a large delivery of weapons to his old political contacts in Central America. To procure the money for the deal, he established a complicated crime scheme, assigning Karla, his loyal assistant and lover, and Chip Cain, the managers of Dent's Bevery Hills gun club, as his task leaders, and selecting financially high-profile targets across Beverly Hills. The trademark calling card of these so-called "Alphabet Crimes" was an encoded letter left at the crime scenes.

However, Captain Andrew Bogomil of the Beverly Hills Police Department somehow caught wind of Dent's criminal intentions. But Bogomil's investigations did not go unnoticed, and Dent had him targeted for assassination. (Ironically, just before the attempt on his life, Bogomil and his loyal underlings John Taggart and Billy Rosewood had just been suspended by their incompetent new chief Harold Lutz for widening the investigation to a federal level, while Lutz intended to keep the matter small in order not to incur the displeasure of mayor Ted Egan.) When he heard of the attempted murder, Axel Foley, a close friend of the three officers, immediately proceeded to Beverly Hills to investigate. Within a short time, Foley singled out Dent as the prime suspect and, with assistance from Taggart and Rosewood, even managed to foil one major robbery on the City Deposit.

Still, thanks to Karla's tireless work, the initial phase was finished on schedule, and in order to throw the police off his track, Dent had Cain killed by Karla as a stand-in patsy. However, even though Lutz was quick to announce the end of the Alphabet Crimes, Foley and company followed another clue down to Dent's oil fields, where the last stage of the arms deal was already underway. Owing to a misguided attempt at stealth by Rosewood, the alarm was raised, and Foley, Rosewood and Taggart were forced to engage Dent's and Thomopolis' henchmen in a firefight. With the arrival of the police, Dent sought revenge on Foley for foiling him by attempting to run him over with his car. Foley, however, was able to shoot Dent in the head through the car's windshield; the car subsequently plunged down a cliffside and exploded upon hitting the ground, incinerating his body.