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Montgomery County Sheriff's Office Special Investigations Unit partners with task force to investigate sophisticated crimes

By: Lt. Brady Fitzgerald, Montgomery County Sheriff's Office
| Published 01/27/2016

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MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Texas — The Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office Special Investigations Unit partnered with a multiple agency task force recently conducted investigations within the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas gang. This OCDEFT (Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force) investigation, titled, “Operation Wheel Alignment” resulted in seventy-three Aryan Brotherhood leaders and high ranking gang members being convicted in Federal Court for a multitude of charges. Lieutenant Philip Cash and Senior Sergeant Michael Landrum of the SIU, Deputy Ben Nichols of the detention Division were recognized today for their contributions to this investigation by receiving a certificate of commendation from the Organized Crime and Gang Section of the Department of Justice and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, firearms and explosives.

The Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) Program was established in 1982 to mount a comprehensive attack against organized drug traffickers. Today, the OCDETF Program is the centerpiece of the United States Attorney General's drug strategy to reduce the availability of drugs by disrupting and dismantling major drug trafficking organization and money laundering organizations and related criminal enterprises.

The Program operates nationwide and combines the resources and unique expertise of numerous federal agencies in a coordinated attack against major drug trafficking and money laundering organizations. The participants involved include the 94 U.S. Attorneys’ Offices, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Internal Revenue Service, the U.S. Coast Guard, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the U.S. Marshals Service, the Criminal and Tax Divisions of the U.S. Department of Justice and numerous State and local agencies.

The OCDETF strategy, under the direction of the Deputy Attorney General, aims to focus federal drug resources on reducing the flow of illicit drugs and drug proceeds by identifying and targeting the major trafficking organizations, eliminating the financial infrastructure of drug organizations by emphasizing financial investigations and asset forfeiture, redirecting federal drug enforcement resources to align them with existing and emerging drug threats, and conducting expanded, nationwide investigations against all the related parts of the targeted organizations.

OCDETF coordinates the annual formulation of the Consolidated Priority Organization Target(CPOT) List, a multi-agency target list of "command and control" elements of the most prolific international drug trafficking and money laundering organizations. OCDETF's attack on the related components of these major trafficking organizations will not only disrupt the drug market, resulting in a reduction in the drug supply, but will also bolster law enforcement efforts in the fight against those terrorist groups supported by the drug trade. The Program also requires its participants to identify major Regional Priority Organization Targets as part of the annual Regional Strategic Plan process.

OCDETF was originally formed as a part of a true "Task Force" approach against sophisticated criminal organizations, with prosecutors and law enforcement personnel working side-by-side in the same location. "OCDETF Strike Forces" in key cities around the country aggressively target the highest-level trafficking organizations and function as a central point of contact for OCDETF agents and prosecutor’s nationwide, gathering intelligence and disseminating leads throughout the neighboring areas.

The OCDETF Fusion Center (OFC) is the cornerstone of OCDETF's intelligence efforts and was created to enhance OCDETF's overall capacity to engage in intelligence-driven law enforcement, an essential component to the OCDETF Program. The OFC is a comprehensive data center that collects and analyzes drug and related financial investigative information and intelligence from a variety of sources to support OCDETF's coordinated, comprehensive, multi-jurisdictional investigations of the most significant drug trafficking and money laundering networks.

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