DEA in New Bedford Making Strong Impact on Drug War
WASHINGTON, April 22–Waiting in the East Room of the White House in 1999 to hear President Clinton speak, New Bedford Mayor Frederick M. Kalisz Jr. tapped retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, then the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy on the shoulder and said, “General, we have a problem and we need some help.”
The Mayor was referring to the increasing drug problem in New Bedford, and, he recalled recently, Mr. McCaffrey “immediately came back with some logistics for the area and suggested that I meet with his staff.”
New Bedford, with a population of more than 100,000, is the sixth-largest city in Massachusetts. It is positioned on Buzzards Bay and is 54 miles south of Boston and 33 miles southeast of Providence, which makes illegal drug trafficking in New Bedford a growth industry.
In 1999, at the Mayor’s request, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) moved into New Bedford and “set up shop, boosting local law enforcement and giving us that extra punch to stop drug trafficking,” said the Mayor.
The DEA provides the largest counter-drug presence in Massachusetts, with offices in Boston, Springfield, Cape Cod, Worcester, and New Bedford. With a mobile enforcement team, the agency was established to help state and local law enforcement combat the illegal drug trade.
Determining whether federal enforcement was necessary in New Bedford, and whether it could help in dealing with the drug problem, were questions worth exploring, and the results have been significant.
“The DEA provides additional manpower or person power,” said New Bedford Police Chief Arthur Kelly. “It allows for them to work on more complicated cases, involving situations outside of state limits. Just recently, they helped with a seizure of just over 500 pounds of cocaine.”
In December, local undercover law enforcement working with the DEA seized more than 600 pounds of cocaine, worth approximately $20 million, making this the largest cocaine seizure in state history.
In February, detectives dismantled a heroin packaging operation from Providence to New Bedford worth approximately $1.4 million.
“Everything is collaborative,” Mayor Kalisz said of the effort of local law enforcement agencies and the DEA. “The fact is, with their presence we can better determine how drugs are getting here. Networking and connections have obviously paid off, and the type of networking has complemented the local law enforcement.”
In collaboration with the DEA, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) in 1990 established High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) to help fight drug trafficking regionally.
The New England HIDTA, which began operating in 1999, is one of 28 in the nation. The program concentrates on drug trafficking organizations and on the drug transportation corridor running north from New York City, and is financed by the ONDCP.
Despite the federal presence, New England HIDTA concentrates specifically on the drug issues concerning New England.
“The goal of the New England HIDTA is to reduce trafficking of drugs through law enforcement investigations and coordination and cooperation among various agencies in New England,” said George Festa, the director of the New England program. “Our mission primarily is to target the criminal groups that are transporting heroin and cocaine from New York to the area.”
To qualify as a high-intensity drug trafficking area, a region must be the center of illegal drug production, manufacturing or distribution, have expressed a determination through local law enforcement to respond aggressively to the problem, and demonstrate that a significant increase in federal resources is necessary to respond to drug-related activities harmful to the community.
For New Bedford, the “primary drug is heroin. We are getting very high purities,” Mr. Festa said.
According to the Justice Department’s National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC), heroin has emerged as a threat equal to or greater than cocaine in Massachusetts, mainly because of a significant rise in the drug’s purity and a steep decline in its price.
Heroin that sold for $3,000-$5,000 per ounce in March 1999 cost only $2,500-$3,100 in September of that year; today, glassine bags that typically contain one user dose of heroin sell today for $4-$30, depending on the purity of the heroin, according to NDIC availability reports.
The NDIC reported that documented heroin distribution offenses in Massachusetts rose 11 percent in 1999 and that documented heroin trafficking offenses rose 32 percent.
The nearby cities of Providence, Woonsocket and Hartford also serve as regional heroin distribution centers outside the state for transporting the drug into Massachusetts markets.
Heroin is transported to Massachusetts in privately owned, borrowed and leased vehicles or by bus along Interstate 95, as well as by boat into seaports in Fall River, Salem and New Bedford.
Drugs are transported to the New Bedford area both by air through New Bedford Regional Airport and by sea, according to the NDIC.
The most significant threat the New England HIDTA confronts is the transportation of drugs across the border from Canada and along the region’s thousands of miles of coastline.
Most heroin in New England comes from Southwest Asia (Pakistan), and has become a top priority for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Boston.
Although that office did not want to comment on what it is doing to help combat drug traffickers in Massachusetts, the NDIC reports that drug organizations are difficult for law enforcement to penetrate and dismantle for several reasons, including the fact that transactions are kept within the organization and that the traffickers obtain false identification papers from sources in the United States.
“There is a network of different kinds of people leading different kinds of lifestyles in different areas making them less obvious to law enforcement,” said Carl Alves, director of the New Bedford Prevention Partnership. “Obviously, there are different levels of sophistication, making it difficult to combat, but we have developed a pretty united force in the community.”
Mr. Festa said, however, that the New England HIDTA, with an annual budget of $2.8 million, is working primarily with local law enforcement to “target, investigate and disrupt or dismantle drug trafficking operations.”
The regional HIDTAs also get supplemental funds from Washington. But President Bush’s fiscal year 2003 budget would reduce HIDTA funds to $206 million from this year’s $220 million. If approved, the decrease would eliminate these supplemental funds.
“The budget is level-funded, so you know you’re going to get at least the same thing next year as you did last year,” said Kurt Schmid, National HIDTA Director of the ONDCP. “Because of a reduction in the budget, there are no excess supplement funds, so it’s important to develop management tools to determine where the priorities are in the program.”
“HIDTAs are going to essentially have to sustain a performance programáto make reasonable, sound management decisions,” Mr. Schmid said. “HIDTA dollars are one-year money that is distributed on a variety of issues. We don’t compare one HIDTA to the other – regional problems are all very unique.”
“It is critical that we gain more money to attack the heroin problem,” said Mr. Festa. “This budget money enables us to continue to grow and tackle the drug problem in New England.”
Focusing on strategy is a value-added trait of regional HIDTAs, according to Mr. Schmid, and New Bedford is spending allocated money to purchase updated technology that the ONDCP provides.
The Counterdrug Technology Assessment Center (CTAC), a branch of the ONDCP, is the central federal counterdrug technology research and development organization; it provides specific technology for specific law enforcement sites.
“Currently, our technology is in all 50 states, and we have technology useful in assisting officers on the street, such as night vision glasses and thermal imagers,” said Dr. Albert Brandenstein, CTAC’s director and the ONDCP’s chief scientist.
“All of the technology is in the state of Massachusetts,” Dr. Brandenstein said. “Since February, 45 agencies have received 74 deliveries already, and by the end of the year 79 agencies will have received 109 deliveries.”
But the importance of the federal presence in the local war on drugs is a matter of some dispute.
“In down economic times there is more drug use, but with the budget down there is less treatment,” Mr. Alves said. “If you look back in time over the past 10 years when drug use and crime was downáI believe that is because of the strong effort in the community that makes things happen – we are a strong community.”
The ONDCP added a local DEA presence to the New Bedford community, creating a “tremendous boost to local law enforcement, enabling our local officials to work with trained federal officials,” Mayor Kalisz said. “A truckload of cocaine and $1 million in cash from illegal drug activity was discovered through help with the DEA – they have caused the type of change we are seeing.”
“I think it’s great that these suppliers are getting caught and confiscated; unfortunately, there are 4-5 guys behind them waiting to take their spot,” Mr. Alves said. “People don’t use drugs for fun and experimentation -it becomes an addiction. We need to arrest the addiction and not the person.”
Mr. Alves, who also runs a treatment facility in New Bedford, believes positive reinforcement in the community and within families, with the help of law enforcement, will make a difference in reducing drug trafficking.
“I think the challenge is demand reduction. We need to work with our kids and give them positive choices and focus on demand reduction and all these things have to happen simultaneously,” Mr. Alves said. “There is a lot to be done, and we can’t get discouraged. “It’s a part of life, and it’s been here forever.”
The New Bedford community continues to advocate against drugs and violence through neighborhood watch and educational programs, which makes it easier for undercover DEA agents to produce more immediate results, Mr. Alves said.
But Mayor Kalisz expressed confidence that, the DEA’s quiet presence and undercover operations in New Bedford will eventually be recognized.
“We certainly don’t want to the DEA to leave or disappear. I am most pleased that with such a strong federal presence, the DEA goes unrecognized,” Mayor Kalisz said. “That will eventually come to an end, but for an extended period of time they have made a tremendous effect.”
Written for The New Bedford Standard-Times in New Bedford, Mass.
