Series: Meth: Shattering Lives In Northern Nevada

A three-month Reno Gazette-Journal investigation found that
methamphetamine's grip on the Truckee Meadows has become a stranglehold.

LAW ENFORCEMENT CHANGING TACTICS IN NEVER-ENDING GAME OF CAT, MOUSE

The man sitting in a bright red pickup at a store in Reno dials his
cell phone and waits.

His conversation is transmitted to radios in a handful of undercover
police cars.

"Hey Mike, this is D. Gimme a call back."

The man, a citizen informant, is trying to set up his meth dealer
while detectives from the Regional Street Enforcement Team watch the
illegal activity. After the deal is done, they will trap the dealer
with strategically placed cars and take him to jail for drug trafficking.

The phone trills.

"He wants me to meet him in Sparks, over by the Nugget."

Undercover detectives sketch out a new plan. But the dealer misses
phone calls and tries to move the scene again and the citizen
informant -- or "CI" -- lets him.

"Sometimes I wonder how drug dealers make money," says Sgt. Brent
Teasley, one of the leaders of SET. "The CI just screwed up."

That afternoon, the target never showed and unwittingly eluded
arrest. After about 90 minutes of trying to meet the target, the SET
officers return to the police station to plan for another day.

Undercover drug buys are one tactic law enforcement uses to fight the
growing meth problem in Northern Nevada. But in this never-ending
game of cat and mouse, as soon as police find effective ways to
prevent drug sales and shipments, traffickers, users and dealers find
new ways to elude them.

"Certainly they have a whole bunch of ideas on how we do our
business," said Sgt. Dave Evans, a leader and founder of SET. "So
they try to change their hours around, thinking we work some specific
hours. They'll maybe try to stay away from certain locations.
Ultimately, there are a million different ways to get them and we
just adapt to those ways."

Network of agencies

SET, which targets street and mid-level dealers, is one layer in a
multi-jurisdictional, multi-agency web working to snare users,
dealers, manufacturers and traffickers.

The network of agencies across Northern Nevada includes SET, the DEA,
the Tri-NET task force in Douglas and Lyon counties and Carson City,
and recently formed street enforcement teams in Douglas County and
Carson City. The Department of Public Safety oversees narcotic task
forces in eastern Nevada, Elko, north central Nevada, Humboldt,
Pershing and Lander counties, near Mesquite and South Lake Tahoe.

The agencies share information from busts, climbing up the ladders of
the Mexico-based trafficking organizations behind the gram and ounce dealers.

Street-level dealers usually sell small amounts of meth, typically
gram baggies for about $70. Mid-level dealers supply street-level
dealers, usually in ounce amounts.

"Once (street-level dealers) are arrested, the so-called mid-level
dealer has to deal himself," Evans said.

All narcotic agencies rely on anonymous tips and information gleaned
from other arrests.

"These drug dealers don't know when we're going to find out about
them," Evans said. "It could be from their best friend who got
arrested last night. Nobody's going to be completely untouchable."

Working from an anonymous message left at their office phone in late
May, SET arrested Jose Luis Saldana, a suspect in the 2005 stabbing
of his brother.

Teasley said Saldana's supply, 8 ounces packaged for sale in
multiple-ounce quantities in his vehicle, was worth nearly $16,000.

Unique challenges

Tri-NET, staffed by detectives from Douglas County, Carson City and
the Department of Public Safety, struggled in towns the size of
Fallon or Fernley because the communities are small and undercover
detectives can be easily recognized.

"You're going to get your face seen," said Detective Mitch Pier, a
supervisor for Tri-NET. "You have to really be careful and choose
when you're going to do an undercover operation."

Pier remembers when he saw the transition about three years ago from
powdered "crank" methamphetamine to crystal, a more potent, more
addictive, purer version of the drug.

"It happened in a weekend," he said. "One weekend we were buying
crank. Then everybody was talking about crystal. We bought our first
crystal and have been buying crystal since."

Detectives in both Carson City and Reno don't typically buy drugs on
street corners, especially meth.

Meth dealers, especially those who are also users, are careful about
sales and try to do them inside homes and only with people they know.

"What we've found is it's almost impossible to go out on the streets
and buy drugs," Evans said. "What we hear is the dealers make you
jump through a lot of hoops. They're worried."

The agencies share information so they don't go after the same
dealers. Dealers trafficking multiple ounces and pounds are forwarded
to the local DEA office.

And as local meth lab numbers fall and meth imports rise, Evans
predicts authorities will increase another narcotics enforcement
tool: highway interdiction.

Capt. Scott Jackson of the Nevada Highway Patrol, a former Tri-NET
supervisor, is trying to create an interdiction team in the northern
part of the state to augment narcotics enforcement. A DEA factsheet
calls Nevada's borders "porous" and east-west corridors such as
Interstate 80 make the region an attractive transaction point for
traffickers, officials said.

The team would monitor highways and seize shipments of drugs headed
from Mexico or cash en route to Mexico. "It's much more difficult
than some of the more traditional law-enforcement techniques," Jackson said.

Law enforcement working interdiction tend to look for something out
of the ordinary when they stop a possible trafficker.

"I think behavior is the best indication," Jackson said. "It's one of
those things you know when you see it. It just doesn't look right."

Traffickers smuggle drugs hidden in secret compartments, stuffed in
airbags and packed into the frame of passenger cars. Others use other
devices: dirty diapers, the linings of coolers and other strategies.

But despite their efforts, law enforcement officials said they will
never stop drug dealers.

"Even though we're arresting dealers, there's a supply of dealers to
replace them," said Lt. John Drew, a Tri-NET supervisor. "I'm not
sure if we're ever going to have an impact where we affect the supply."