METH INVESTIGATION LEADS TO REGIONAL AWARD FOR KPD

LIHU'E - A multi-year, multi-agency, multi-state, multi-nation,
methamphetamine-trafficking investigation begun by Kaua'i Police
Department officers garnered a significant award, Chief Darryl Perry
said last week.

As a result of a county-state-federal investigation that started on
the Garden Isle with KPD officers and led to the arrest of eight
residents and confiscation of 11 pounds of meth worth nearly $500,000,
KPD was named 2008 Agency of the Year by the Western States
Information Network, Perry said.

A plaque acknowledging the award is attached to a wall of joint
county-state-federal law-enforcement offices in Restaurant Row in
Honolulu, said Ken Tano, a retired Honolulu Police Department officer
and WSIN regional coordinator for Hawai'i.

Out of over 1,000 law-enforcement agencies at the federal, state,
county and city levels from five western states (Hawai'i, California,
Washington, Oregon and Alaska), KPD was chosen Agency of the Year,
Perry told members of the Kaua'i Police Commission at its regular
August meeting Friday at the Historic County Building.

The meth-trafficking case that led to the arrest of eight Kauaians in
October 2007 was the co-case of the year for 2008 in the federal High
Intensity Drug Trafficking Area investigative arena, Tano said in a
telephone interview Monday.

The award is the result of KPD participation in information- and
intelligence-sharing and "significant law-enforcement activities" in
the multi-jurisdictional case that ended up with 13 federal search
warrants being issued on four islands in Hawai'i, and six search
warrants and four arrest warrants being issued in Sacramento, Calif.,
Tano said.

"And they (KPD) do a really good job of that," Tano said of
intelligence-sharing.

The ring that was disrupted by Operation Garden Ice was responsible
for bringing to Hawai'i and Kaua'i meth from the Philippines and
Sacramento, he said.

"That becomes significant because you want to take down the source,"
Tano said.

All told, 11 pounds of meth, $115,000 in "assets" and $1.5 million in
real property was forfeited, Tano said.

KPD officers started the case with good intelligence, and federal
wiretaps were eventually employed to gather sufficient information to
make the busts, Tano said.

"Wiretaps are very, very expensive," and in this case involved
overtime and Spanish-speaking interpreters, he said.

As a result of the KPD intelligence, the case was designated of
federal importance through the Drug Enforcement Agency's Organized
Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, Tano said.

The WSIN was formally established in 1981 by the U.S. Department of
Justice through a congressional appropriation for the establishment of
six Regional Information Sharing Systems centers throughout the United
States, according to the WSIN Web site, ag.ca.gov/wsin.

The purpose was to form a partnership between the federal government
and local law enforcement. WSIN is a bureau under the California
Department of Justice Division of Law Enforcement, and the California
Department of Justice is the grantee agency for WSIN.

WSIN supports multi-agency coordination and cooperation, and
encourages and facilitates the timely exchange of intelligence among
member agencies at the local, state and federal levels, the Web site
says.

WSIN responds to the information-sharing needs of its law-enforcement
members in the five western states.

In order to qualify for membership, an organization must be a public
agency located within a WSIN member state which has general or
specific state or federal statutory authority for enforcement,
intelligence, or prosecution of narcotic, gang, terrorism, and Part I
crimes (homicide, sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault,
burglary, larceny, auto theft and arson).

The expansion to Part I crimes was approved by the WSIN Policy Board
in 2005 in response to the needs of member agencies, the Web site states.

The Policy Board sets broad policy for the overall objectives,
functions, and operations of WSIN.

The Policy Board, which governs WSIN, consists of two top
law-enforcement officers from each of the five member states.

The California attorney general (currently Edmund G. Brown Jr.) is the
permanent chairman.