GORE VOWS FEDERAL HELP IN TRACKING DRUG KINGPINS

Federal and local law-enforcement authorities are hoping that what brought
down Al Capone in the 1930s will work equally well to bring down drug
kingpins in the 1990s.

Chicago's most famous organized crime figure ran his bootlegging operation
for years before federal officials sent him to jail for tax evasion.
Federal and local law-enforcement authorities are hoping they once again
can follow the money trail to break up drug rings and the accompanying
money laundering operations in and around Chicago.

During a fundraising stop in Chicago Monday, Vice President Al Gore toured
the Chicago Police Department's Belmont District station and announced 300
federal, state and local agents will be deployed to investigate and
prosecute drug trafficking and money laundering in the metropolitan region.
Agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration, Federal Bureau of
Investigation, Customs Service and Internal Revenue Service will work with
Chicago police officers to conduct the financial investigations.

"We will create a seamless web we hope (drug dealers) will not escape,"
Gore said.

Although federal agents are heavily involved in anti-narcotics law
enforcement in Miami and Washington, D.C., this Chicago initiative is the
first joint federal-local effort, Gore said.

To the cops on the street, this coordinated program means that when police
sweep an apartment or arrest a dealer, they can send the
paperwork--receipts, names, numbers--to federal authorities who can run the
information through federal government databases immediately, Gore said.

"We can take the financial facts, the cash flow and put the pattern
together," Gore said.

From that information, they can develop the federal tax-evasion cases that
can put the dealers in jail, he said.

Chicago Police Sgt. Joseph Del Pilar said he saw firsthand how effective a
federal-local task force can be in fighting drugs three years ago when he
was working as an undercover officer.

In a joint FBI-Chicago police investigation into drug dealing at the
Lathrop Homes housing development, the federal government's sophisticated
electronic equipment and tougher laws led to the conviction of 20 dealers,
he said. Six kingpins are facing life sentences, he said.

"But the FBI and the Chicago Police Department working together was the
exception, not the rule. Officers on the street need all the help they can
get," Del Pilar said.

Gore credited Mayor Richard M. Daley with pushing the federal government to
make a bigger commitment to fighting drug dealing in Chicago.

Daley said that although local action is making a dent in the drug
problem--from community policing programs to expanded night drug
courts--"local action is not enough."

Daley said he pushed for more federal involvement after he studied the
numbers and found that only 122 defendants were prosecuted in 65 federal
drug cases in 1996. He told the Clinton administration "that I believed
they could do a better job."

"I firmly believe that the No. 1 obligation of the federal government is
fighting drug dealing. It destroys more of our children than any other
problem," Daley said.

In what Gore said he hopes will be a model that can be used in other
cities, this initiative is designed to "send a strong message to drug
dealers: We will catch you. We will arrest you. We will use every tool at
our disposal to punish you."

Checked-by: (Joel W. Johnson)