DRUG BUSTS BUOY VALLEY TASK FORCES

HARRISONBURG - A recent all-night police roundup that snared a ring
of suspected drug pushers took place in an unlikely setting of farms,
truck stops and quaint towns in the Shenandoah Valley.

At about 5 p.m. June 7 in Woodstock, an undercover agent with the
federal Drug Enforcement Administration arrested a man who was
allegedly selling him 5 pounds of methamphetamine at a motel.

Authorities said that suspect fingered another man, setting in motion
an operation conducted by about 40 law enforcement officers from
jurisdictions from Frederick County and Winchester south to
Rockingham County and Harrisonburg. With them were officers from the
Virginia State Police and agents from the DEA and U.S. Immigration
and Naturalization Service.

At about 11:30 p.m., another undercover methamphetamine "buy" at a
truck stop in Toms Brook, eight miles up Interstate 81, netted a
suspect who authorities say tried to push 2 pounds of the illicit
drug. Officials said the second alleged pusher ratted out others,
sending officers and agents in three directions: to a trailer in
Middletown in Frederick County; a house in Quicksburg, a rural
community in Shenandoah County; and an apartment in Harrisonburg.

"That's when we started bringing down the whole operation," said
Capt. Tim Carter, the chief deputy of the Shenandoah County Sheriff's
Office.

The operation continued until about 4 a.m. June 8. All told, seven
suspects were arrested and 8 pounds of methamphetamine with a street
value of between $360,000 and $720,000 were seized, as were four
handguns, a car, a sport utility vehicle and $19,400 in cash.

The INS detained three suspects for deportation hearings soon after
the bust. On June 20, a federal grand jury sitting in Charlottesville
indicted six of the suspects on drug trafficking charges. The seventh
is a juvenile.

It was an encouraging success story for two multijurisdictional task
forces in the northern valley that combined forces in May to fight
methamphetamine trafficking by making this kind of bust.

Drug enforcement in the rural counties and small cities of the
Shenandoah Valley usually dealt with isolated busts of small-time
cocaine and marijuana dealers, and rarely methamphetamine. Drug busts
now often follow months of state and federal investigations
stretching across many counties and cities and result in multiple
arrests and seizures of large amounts of drugs, especially
methamphetamine.

The June operation was the culmination of one of the most recent such probes.

"We had intelligence of where we had suspected dealers and where we
would be going," Carter said. "But having those first two guys
arrested that evening just solidified our intelligence and took us
into these other jurisdictions."

The new alliance combines the efforts of the RUSH Drug Task Force,
which covers Harrisonburg and Rockingham County, and the Northwest
Virginia Regional Drug Task Force covering Frederick, Warren, Clarke,
Shenandoah and Page counties and Winchester. The Virginia State
Police is part of both units. Agents with the INS and DEA work
closely with both organizations.

From the beginning of this year through the June operation,
authorities from the two task forces had seized 22 pounds of
methamphetamine, a stimulant also called speed, ice or crystal. A
typical abuser's "hit" of methamphetamine is about an eighth of an
ounce.

Three years ago, as multipound seizures like last month's began
happening with more frequency, local investigators realized that
there weren't enough users in the pastoral valley to justify the drug
influx.

They surmised that the northern valley, centrally located with
Interstates 81 and 66, had become a distribution point for
methamphetamine destined for mid-Atlantic cities. The investigators
soon determined that the illicit traffic was bigger than either of
the multijurisdictional task forces could handle by themselves.

With a $250,000 federal appropriation sought by Rep. Frank R. Wolf,
R-10th, the task forces teamed to share resources, said Sgt. Barry
Wittig of the RUSH Drug Task Force.

"All of us [in the region] figured, if we can find one thing that
will benefit the whole area, then let's use it for that and not break
it down into localities," Wittig said of the grant.

The 22 pounds of methamphetamine seized in the northern valley
through early June represents 99 percent of all such seizures
recorded by the multijurisdictional task forces in the state this
year. Since 1998, the region has accounted for 93 percent of all the
speed seized by state task forces.

The drug, which is synthetic, can be snorted in a powder, dissolved
in a liquid for intravenous injection or smoked as a crystal. It
causes euphoria, hyperactivity and a sense of increased energy.

The DEA believes traffickers from Mexico and the southwestern United
States have begun using points along the northern I-81 corridor to
distribute speed to cities like Baltimore and Washington. Seizures of
methamphetamine-making labs, mainly in the West and Southwest, have
jumped in the past few years, according to the agency.

The two northern valley task forces will continue to operate
separately, but will share the federal aid and law enforcement
support, authorities said. The DEA and INS will continue to cooperate
with local law enforcement.

Three DEA agents work out of a Winchester office, but operate
throughout the region, said Laura DiCesare, an agency spokeswoman.

"Our guys are almost part of those task forces," DiCesare said. "They
actually sit with them. They have office space in both areas."

Shenandoah County Sheriff Larry W. Green said the cooperation between
local, state and federal authorities has already produced results,
especially an increase in arrests and seizures. Still, the
confiscations are probably only a small portion of what gets through,
and police could use more help from the state before the supply lines
fan out across Virginia, Green said.

"This is a terrible drug, and it's not as costly as some of the
others," Green said. "It doesn't have to be imported. It can be
manufactured locally."