[Senate Hearing 117-258]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 117-258
ADDRESSING THE EVOLVING THREAT OF ILLEGAL
DRUG TRAFFICKING TO OUR COMMUNITIES
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FIELD HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON
EMERGING THREATS AND SPENDING OVERSIGHT
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MARCH 14, 2022
__________
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
47-458 PDF WASHINGTON : 2022
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COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
GARY C. PETERS, Michigan, Chairman
THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware ROB PORTMAN, Ohio
MAGGIE HASSAN, New Hampshire RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
KYRSTEN SINEMA, Arizona RAND PAUL, Kentucky
JACKY ROSEN, Nevada JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma
ALEX PADILLA, California MITT ROMNEY, Utah
JON OSSOFF, Georgia RICK SCOTT, Florida
JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri
David M. Weinberg, Staff Director
Zachary I. Schram, Chief Counsel
Pamela Thiessen, Minority Staff Director
Andrew Dockham, Minority Chief Counsel and Deputy Staff Director
Laura W. Kilbride, Chief Clerk
Thomas J. Spino, Hearing Clerk
SUBCOMMITTEE ON EMERGING THREATS AND SPENDING OVERSIGHT
MAGGIE HASSAN, New Hampshire, Chairman
KYRSTEN SINEMA, Arizona RAND PAUL, Kentucky
JACKY ROSEN, Nevada MITT ROMNEY, Utah
JON OSSOFF, Georgia RICK SCOTT, Florida
JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri
Jason Yanussi, Staff Director
Peter Su, Fellow
Adam Salmon, Minority Staff Director
Kate Kielceski, Chief Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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Opening statements:
Page
Senator Hassan............................................... 1
Hon. Kuster.................................................. 3
Hon. Pappas.................................................. 4
Prepared statements:
Senator Hassan............................................... 39
WITNESSES
Monday, March 14, 2022
Matthew Millhollin, Special Agent in Charge, New England,
Homeland Security Investigations, Immigration and Customs
Enforcement, U.S. Department of Homeland Security.............. 6
Michael P. Manning, Assistant Director Field Operations Border
Security, Boston Field Office, Customs and Border Protection... 8
Jon DeLena, Deputy Special Agent in Charge, New England Field
Division, Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Department of
Justice........................................................ 10
Ellen M. Arcieri, Commander, New Hampshire Attorney General's
Drug Task Force, New Hampshire Department of Justice........... 12
Joseph M. Ebert, Major, Investigative Services Bureau Commander,
New Hampshire State Police..................................... 14
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Arcieri Ellen M.:
Testimony.................................................... 12
Prepared statement........................................... 62
DeLena Jon:
Testimony.................................................... 10
Prepared statement........................................... 55
Ebert, Joseph M.:
Testimony.................................................... 14
Prepared statement........................................... 65
Manning, Michael P.:
Testimony.................................................... 8
Prepared statement........................................... 47
Millhollin, Matthew:
Testimony.................................................... 6
Prepared statement........................................... 41
APPENDIX
Commission on Combatting Synthetic Opioid Trafficking Report..... 67
Statement submitted by the National Narcotic Officers Associatons
Coalition...................................................... 206
ADDRESSING THE EVOLVING THREAT OF
ILLEGAL DRUG TRAFFICKING TO OUR COMMUNITIES
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MONDAY, MARCH 14, 2022
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and
Spending Oversight,
of the Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Manchester, NH.
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:30 a.m. in
Multipurpose room, University of New Hampshire at Manchester,
88 Commercial Street, Manchester, NH, Hon. Maggie Hassan,
Chairman of the Subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senator Hassan, Representative Kuster and
Representative Pappas.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HASSAN\1\
Senator Hassan. This hearing will come to order.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Senator Hassan appears in the
Appendix on page 39.
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Good morning, everybody. I'm Senator Maggie Hassan, Chair
of the Emerging Threats and Spending Oversight Subcommittee
(ETSO) on the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
Committee (HSGAC), and I would like to welcome you all to our
field hearing examining the evolving threat of drug trafficking
in New Hampshire and communities all across the United States.
Too often, the drugs flowing into New Hampshire originate
outside our country--and cross into the United States at our
Southern Border. I have visited the Southern Border several
times as a Senator where law enforcement officials discussed
with me our drug cartels smuggle drugs into the country. Those
same drugs end up here in the Granite State, and that is one of
many reasons why we must secure our Southern Border, making
sure that our border security and law enforcement personnel
have the resources and support that they need.
As a member of the Homeland Security and Governmental
Affairs Committee, I have worked with my colleagues from both
parties on solutions to strengthen border security and ensure
that we target illegal drug trafficking, increase investments
in border security technology, and improve infrastructure for
Border Patrol stations and land ports of entry (LPOE).
As part of those efforts we have invested billions in
border security infrastructure and technology to gain
operational control on the Southern Border including $3 billion
for Border Patrol stations and land ports of entry in the
bipartisan infrastructure deal that I helped negotiate and pass
into law last year.
To give Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents the
support that they need, I supported hiring thousands more
agents and investing in personnel and training, and I helped
introduce a bill that was signed into law to crack down on
illegal drug trafficking by equipping Customs and Border
Protection with state-of-the-art technology to detect fentanyl.
We know though that we have a lot more work to do. That is
why today we will hear from our witnesses about how criminal
organizations use ever-evolving smuggling tactics to evade
detection and about the work of law enforcement and border
security agencies to stop drug trafficking. We will also
discuss what additional measures Congress can take to support
law enforcement and promote counter narcotics programs to help
make our communities safer.
Our hearing will address the ongoing threat of heroin,
fentanyl, and opioid trafficking, and will also address the
rising threat that methamphetamine poses to our communities.
Methamphetamine has contributed to increasing incidents of
violent crime and dangerous encounters with community members
and law enforcement, in addition to overdose deaths. Much of
the fentanyl and the methamphetamine traffic into New Hampshire
is manufactured in Mexico using precursor chemicals that often
come from China. Most of it is then smuggled over the Southern
Border in the United States.
From there criminals will smuggle in drugs north across
State lines and eventually deliver them to New Hampshire.
National and State borders mean little to the criminal
organizations trafficking drugs. That is why close coordination
and cooperation between Federal, State, and local law
enforcement is the key to stopping trafficking and preventing
these drugs from reaching our communities.
I am pleased to be joined today by regional officials from
the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Homeland Security
Investigations (HSI), and U.S. Customs and Border Protection,
as well as State officials from the New Hampshire Drug Task
Force (DTF) and the Investigative Services Bureau of the New
Hampshire State Police (NHSP).
The Drug Enforcement Administration leads our country's
efforts to stop drug trafficking including coordinating with
Federal, State, and local partners including here in New
Hampshire. Homeland Security Investigations leads Border
Enforcement Security Task (BEST) Forces to support Federal,
State, and local efforts and provide specialized training to
State and local partners. Customs and Border Protection secures
and operates the border, including deploying new scanning
technology to detect drugs at ports of entry (POE) and piloting
drone detection and interception technologies to stop drones
used to smuggle drugs across the border.
The New Hampshire Drug Task Force helps local police
departments with counternarcotics investigations while also
serving as a bridge to Federal law enforcement, and the New
Hampshire State Police serves on the frontlines protecting our
communities and overseeing the Granite Shield program that
promotes coordination among State, local, and Federal agencies
on counternarcotics operations.
These agencies all work together to target illegal drug
trafficking, and I look forward to our discussion today about
how we can continue to improve coordination and provide
critical resources and support to protect New Hampshire's
communities.
I want to thank all of our witnesses for their service to
New Hampshire and to our country and for being here today.
With that, I am going to recognize Representative Kuster
and then Representative Pappas for their opening remarks. Thank
you, Representative Kuster, for being here.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ANN M. KUSTER, A REPRESENTATIVE IN
CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
Ms. Kuster. Thank you so much, Madam Chairwoman, and thank
you for holding this important hearing today in Manchester, and
I want to thank all of our witnesses for joining us as well.
Here in New Hampshire we saw very early on the devastation
of the addiction epidemic with origins in the Food and Drug
Administration's (FDA) approval of OxyContin in 1995, two
decades of overprescribing prescription painkillers in our
communities. Before we knew it, literally millions of Americans
were dependent on opioids. Over one million have died since
1999.
Illegal drug markets once dominated by diverted pills
quickly evolved to match the demand in our communities, and
folks with substance abuse disorder turned to heroin and then
sometimes unknowingly to synthetic opioids including fentanyl.
That is why in 2015 I founded the bipartisan Heroin Task
Force with my former colleague Congressman Guinta. I still
remember when I would talk to my colleagues about the work of
the task force in the overdose crisis, and they would say so
confidently, oh, no, we don't have that in my District, and I
would be the bearer of bad news saying oh, yes, but you do.
Today there are 145 members of the House of Representatives
as part of our new Bipartisan Addiction and Mental Health Task
Force including Congressman Pappas because like this epidemic,
our Task Force has evolved to address not just opioids, not
just heroin, but the challenges of the addiction crisis.
The complexity of this crisis is urgent. Our most recent
data shows that over 100,000 Americans lost their lives to
overdose just in the past year alone, the highest number ever
recorded in a 12-month period, and many more overdose, survive
and continue to struggle with substance use disorder. I was
pleased to see President Biden's Unity Agenda include historic
investments to address addiction in the overdose epidemic, both
through support and treatment efforts as well as greater
investments in interdiction to reduce the availability in
trafficking of illicit drugs, and just last week the House
included an extension of the emergency scheduling of fentanyl-
related substances to continue to provide law enforcement with
the tools they have requested while a more permanent solution
is explored, and I know Representative Pappas will be getting
into that because as many of our witnesses have pointed out in
their written testimony, the fentanyl and synthetic drug crisis
is a critical threat both to public safety and to public health
in our communities.
As we begin our discussion today, I would like to submit
for the record the final report from the Commission on
Combatting Synthetic Opioid Trafficking\1\ cochaired by Senator
Tom Cotton and my colleague and cofounder of the Task Force,
Congressman David Trone from Maryland.
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\1\ The Commission on Combatting Synthetic Opioid Trafficking
report appears in the Appendix on page 67.
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I hope today's hearing will bring a better understanding of
current efforts in stopping the flow of fentanyl to our
communities and how we can provide our communities with the
most appropriate and effective tools to combat the overdose
epidemic, and I look forward to this discussion. Thank you and
I yield back.
Senator Hassan. Thank you, Congresswoman Kuster. Without
objection we will include in the record the report that you
referenced.
Now to my colleague Congressman Pappas. Thank you for being
here, Congressman.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CHRISTOPHER C. PAPPAS, A
REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
Mr. Pappas. Thank you very much, Madame Chair, for holding
this hearing here in Manchester, and I want to thank all our
members of the law enforcement community who are here for this
hearing today for your longstanding commitment to doing all we
need to do to keep the people of New Hampshire safe. It could
not be a more important conversation that we are having here
this morning. Thank you so much for what you are doing as we
face this crisis that we know continues to take far too many
lives in communities here in New Hampshire and all across the
country. We are eager to hear today from our panels of experts
from what they are seeing on the ground and learning what can
be improved and how we can support your work with our efforts
on the policy side in Washington.
As Congresswoman Kuster mentioned, we lost 100,000
Americans last year to drug overdoses. At that rate we can
expect by the end of this hearing to lose another 12 Americans
to drugs like fentanyl which is the leading cause of death for
Americans aged 18 to 45.
We know that the cartels work day and night to evade law
enforcement and work around measures that we take to stop
trafficking so that they can continue to push their deadly
products out to more citizens. I remember talking with a police
chief recently in my district who told me about ever more
creative ways that the cartels are undertaking to get drugs
here to New Hampshire, and so that is why the efforts of law
enforcement are so crucial and why we have to do all we can to
stay ahead of them, and to provide those on the frontlines of
this fight with the resources and tools that they need to bring
these individuals to justice. One tool that we do have and
Congresswoman Kuster mentioned it is to permanently schedule
fentanyl analogues as Schedule 1 under the Controlled
Substances Act. We know that all the traffickers need to do to
evade prosecution sometimes is to make a minor change to
fentanyl and that law enforcement must work hard to analyze and
individually reschedule that substance. This takes time, and it
is something that we do not have an ample supply of in this
fight.
That is why recently I introduced a bipartisan bill, the
Safe Act of 2022, that would permanently schedule all fentanyl-
related substances as Schedule 1 drugs and would ensure that
law enforcement can keep them off the streets. DEA's temporary
order to keep fentanyl-related substances in Schedule 1 expired
last week. It was continued though in the Omnibus
Appropriations Bill through the end of year so we have some
time to get this right.
We know that there is more work to do beyond this
scheduling issue, and in my conversations with law enforcement
and those in the treatment and recovery space we know that
there is no one solution that is going to solve this crisis. It
is going to take everyone coming to the table, it is going to
take us both focusing on the supply issue as well as the demand
issue and making sure that we have the infrastructure of
treatment and recovery that is strong for the future here in
New Hampshire, and we do have to take every step possible to
hold those who are bringing drugs into this country accountable
to the fullest extent of law.
I know we are all committed to that work. I thank you
again, Senator Hassan, for hosting this hearing here, and I
will yield back my time.
Senator Hassan. Thank you very much, Congressman Pappas. In
just a moment I am going to swear the witnesses. So people have
a sense of how the hearing will proceed, we will hear from each
of the witnesses, and then each of us will have the opportunity
for at least one 7-minute round of questions.
It is the practice of the Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs Committee to swear in witnesses so if all
of you could please stand and raise your right hand.
Do you swear that the testimony you give before this
Subcommittee will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but
the truth so help you, God?
(Panel responds affirmatively)
Thank you.
Please be seated.
We are going to start with our first witness today is who
is Special Agent Matthew Millhollin, Special Agent in Charge
(SAC) of the New England Field Office for Homeland Security
Investigations. Special Agent Millhollin previously led HSI's
international investigation team in Mexico, was the Department
of Homeland Security (DHS) attache to Israel, served as HSI's
Chief of Staff for International Operations, and previously
served several years as a Special Agent in the New England
Field Office. Welcome, Special Agent Millhollin. You are
recognized for your opening statement.
TESTIMONY OF MATTHEW B. MILLHOLLIN,\1\ SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE,
NEW ENGLAND HOMELAND SECURITY INVESTIGATIONS, IMMIGRATION AND
CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Mr. Millhollin. Chair Hassan, Distinguished Members of the
New Hampshire Delegation, thank you for the opportunity to
appear before you today to discuss the efforts of Homeland
Security Investigations to secure the homeland from
transnational organized crime (TCOs), particularly those that
threaten our communities through illegal narcotics trafficking.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Millhollin appears in the
Appendix on page 41.
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As the principal investigative component of the Department
of Homeland Security, HSI is the premier global law enforcement
organization responsible for conducting Federal criminal
investigations at every critical location in the illegal
narcotics economy: internationally, in cooperation with foreign
counterparts where transnational criminal and terrorist
organizations procure and produce narcotics; at our nation's
physical borders and ports of entry where smuggling networks
attempt to exploit American's legitimate trade, travel, and
transportation systems; and in communities--large and small--
throughout the United States where criminal organizations earn
substantial profits off their illicit activities.
HSI gathers evidence used to identify and build criminal
cases against transnational criminal organizations and
facilitators and other criminal elements that threaten the
homeland. HSI works with prosecutors to indict and arrest
violators, execute criminal search warrants, seize criminally
derived money and assets, and take other actions designed to
disrupt and dismantle criminal organizations operating around
the world.
HSI's unique authority allows us to span the international
border and collaborate with law enforcement both around the
world and here in New Hampshire. This empowers HSI to employ a
holistic strategy that starts with a focus on the foreign
sourcing of illicit substances and extends to the cities and
towns across America where the goal is to disrupt and dismantle
the TCOs who profit from the poisoning of American citizens.
HSI's international presence is a key facet of its approach
to countering transnational organized crime. With over 80
offices in more than 50 countries, HSI develops and fosters
relationships with host government law enforcement partners to
exchange information, coordinate and support investigations,
and facilitate enforcement actions and prosecutions to degrade
the ability of TCOs to smuggle drugs, people, and other
contraband into and out of the United States.
A principal element of this strategy is HSI's Transnational
Criminal Investigation Program (TCIU), which is comprised of
vetted foreign law enforcement officials and prosecutors who
facilitate information exchange and rapid bilateral
investigations involving violations that fall within HSI's
broad investigative mandate. HSI has established 11 TCIUs
around the world, including in Mexico, where our colleagues and
HSI are particularly focused on disrupting illegal narcotics
trafficking.
HSI has a forward leaning approach to identify and mitigate
threats before they reach our borders by targeting the movement
of elicit precursor chemicals within commercial air and
maritime transportation systems. HSI uses a methodology
developed by special agents and analysts that blends
interagency collaboration, industry partnerships, and analytic
tools and techniques to process and analyze large volumes of
data. These efforts have contributed to shifts in the direct
sourcing of Chinese fentanyl to the United States and have
driven the government's focus further toward Mexico's role in
producing fentanyl and other illicit opioids.
HSI's efforts continue at the border and within our field
offices throughout the United States where HSI special agents
respond to and investigate schemes that manifest themselves in
various forms such as smuggling incidents at the border;
referrals from Federal, State and local law enforcement
partners; sources of information; tip line or social media
reporting; community relations and public affairs outreach; and
information gleaned from existing operations.
HSI New England and our Manchester office take particular
pride in our network of partnerships which includes agencies
represented here today by CBP, DEA, New Hampshire State Police,
and the New Hampshire Attorney General's Office, as well as the
U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS), Manchester Police
Department, Nashua Police Department, Keene Police Department,
Portsmouth Police Department, and multiple Sheriff's Offices,
including Merrimack and Strafford counties.
These partnerships are amplified by the programs such as
the Office of National Drug Control Policy's (ONDCP) High
Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTA) Program which plays a
critical role in enabling participation by State and local law
enforcement on Task Forces that are focused on investigating
the criminal organizations that traffic fentanyl and
methamphetamine. This comes in the form of funding for overtime
and vehicles for State and local Task Force officers which
would otherwise go unfunded.
Similarly, the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces
(OCDETF), Program allows HSI special agents and other law
enforcement partners to collaborate in investigations using our
unique and far-reaching authorities to make local impacts in
places like New Hampshire. We have dedicated personnel on 11
OCDETF colocated Strike Forces, including the Boston OCDETF
Strike Task Force where HSI recently led several investigations
that have impacted TCOs who supplied the New England region
with illicit narcotics.
HSI's authorities and dynamic approaches to
counternarcotics allows us to pursue impactful investigations
and attack all aspects of the organizations responsible for
this ongoing public health crisis. While our collective efforts
are executed with diligence and commitment to public safety,
significant work remains at all levels--internationally, on the
border, and in our communities. HSI is committed to continuing
the fight against the opioid epidemic on all fronts and with
essential partners.
Thank you again for the opportunity to appear here today
and for your continued support of HSI and the critical
investigative role it plays in attacking the fentanyl supply
chain. I look forward to your questions.
Senator Hassan. Thank you very much, Special Agent.
Our second witness today is Assistant Director Michael
Manning, Assistant Director of Field Operations and Border
Security for the Boston Field Office of Customs and Border
Protection. Assistant Director Manning oversees all Border
Security operations in the New England area including at the
airports, seaports and land ports of entry in New England and
New Hampshire. Assistant Director Manning has 20 years of
experience serving US Customs and Border Protection including
in counterterrorism, intelligence and Border Security roles.
Welcome, Assistant Director Manning. You're recognized for your
opening Statement.
TESTIMONY OF MICHAEL P. MANNING,\1\ ASSISTANT DIRECTOR FIELD
OPERATIONS BORDER SECURITY, BOSTON FIELD OFFICE, CUSTOMS AND
BORDER PROTECTION, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY
Mr. Manning. Chairwoman Hassan, Representative Kuster,
Representative Pappas. Thank you for the opportunity to appear
today to discuss U.S. Customs and Border Protection's efforts
to combat the flow of illicit drugs into New Hampshire
communities and across the United States.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Manning appears in the Appendix
on page 47.
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The CBP Office of Field Operations (OFO), Boston Field
Office, as an area of responsibility that spans six New England
States and includes 473 miles of coastline, 750 miles of land
border with Canada, and 63 international ports of entry. Today
I would first like to highlight drug trends and seizures in the
region and then discuss CBP's multi-layered enforcement
approach to countering the drug threat.
First, as you are aware, the reach and influence of
Transnational Criminal Organizations continues to expand across
and beyond our borders. TCOs increasingly demonstrate the
ability to produce sophisticated synthetic drugs and analogues
that are difficult to detect and legally enforce.
They also continually adjust their operations to circumvent
detection and interdiction by law enforcement by shifting to
drugs that can be transported in small quantities and improving
fabrication and concealment techniques.
Nationwide, CBP seizures of fentanyl have increased
sharply. In fiscal year (FY) 2021, CBP seized more than 11,000
pounds of fentanyl, more than twice the weight seized in fiscal
year 2020 and about four times as much as fiscal year 2019.
In fiscal year 2021 within the New England region--that is,
the OFO Boston Field Office Area of Responsibility (AOR) and
Border Patrol's Swanton and Houlton Sectors--CBP seized more
than 2.8 tons of illegal drugs, the majority being marijuana,
but also cocaine, fentanyl and methamphetamine.
However, for the purpose of this hearing I would like to
highlight the 264 shipments of narcotics that CBP seized
destined to New Hampshire during the course of fiscal year
2021, a 45 percent increase compared to the 181 seizures in
fiscal year 2020.
Almost all of these seizures occurred outside the Boston
Field Office AOR at an Express Consignment Courier (ECC) or
International Mail Facility (IMF) and most involved
prescription opioid medication such as Oxycodone, Tramadol or
Tapentadol.
CBP recognizes the significant impact opioids and other
narcotics continue to have on our local communities and has
implemented an aggressive and strategic enforcement approach
that leverages partnerships, advance information and
intelligence, and sophisticated detection and scientific
laboratory capabilities to combat the cross-border flow of
drugs and address the trends I just discussed.
Our partnerships are critical. We work closely with our
Federal partners, especially U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations, the Drug
Enforcement Administration, the United States Postal Service
(USPS), as well as State, local, tribal, and international
partners to share, inform and collaborate in joint enforcement
operations to identify, target, and disrupt illicit drug
activity.
The authorities and mechanisms that enable CBP to obtain
advance electronic shipping information are crucial to CBP's
ability to identify shipments that are potentially at a higher
risk of obtaining contraband.
At CBP's National Targeting Center (NTC), this advance data
and law enforcement and intelligence records converge to
facilitate the identification of suspect high-risk shipments,
cargo, and travelers.
At all CBP operational environments, nonintrusive
inspection systems efficiently and quickly detect the presence
of suspect illegal narcotics within shipments, passenger
belongings, cargo containers, commercial trucks, rail cars and
privately owned vehicles.
For narcotics seized through the international mail and at
express consignment facilities, CBP uses various field-testing
devices to rapidly screen suspected controlled substances.
Onsite CBP laboratories and scientists as well as 24/7
teleforensic reachback service that enables CBP officers to
submit sample data electronically to CBP scientists facilitate
swift scientific interpretation and identification of suspected
narcotics.
Canine operations are also an invaluable component of our
counternarcotics operations. The CBP Canine Training Program
maintains the largest and most diverse law enforcement canine
training program in the country. Adapting to current treads,
all Concealed Human and Narcotic Detection canine teams have
completed training to include the odor of fentanyl and fentanyl
analogues. All CBP information and laboratory identification
data are provided to the NTC and our Federal investigative
partners.
CBP's enforcement approach not only focuses on efficient
detection of suspected illicit drugs but also prioritizes swift
identification of substances and information sharing. It is
this collaborative approach that leads to investigations,
prosecutions, and the dismantling of TCO networks and
operations.
As the threat of illicit drugs persists in communities
across the United States, CBP will continue to work with our
partners, share information, and prioritize and dedicate
resources to counter TCOs and disrupt the flow of illicit drugs
that cross our borders.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I look
forward to your questions.
Senator Hassan. Thank you so much.
Our third witness today is Special Agent Jon DeLena, Deputy
Special Agent in charge of the New England Field Division
(NEFD) for the Drug Enforcement Administration. Special Agent
DeLena has nearly 30 years of law enforcement experience,
including more than 25 years with the DEA. Special Agent DeLena
previously served in the DEA's Office of Global Operations and
in its Office of Special Projects.
Welcome, Special Agent DeLena. You are recognized for your
opening statement.
TESTIMONY OF JON DELENA\1\, DEPUTY SPECIAL AGENT IN CHARGE, NEW
ENGLAND FIELD DIVISION, DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
Mr. DeLena. Good morning, Chair Hassan, Congresswoman
Kuster, and Congressman Pappas. On behalf of the Department of
Justice (DOJ) and in particular the approximately 9,000
employees of the Drug Enforcement Administration, it is my
honor to appear before you here today.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. DeLena appears in the Appendix on
page 55.
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Today's hearing comes at a critical moment in our country's
history. Our nation is in the midst of a devastating overdose
epidemic that claimed the lives of 104,000 people this past
year. 286 people die every day from drug overdoses and
countless more overdose victims survive. I speak for all of DEA
when I say overdose deaths at this rate are devastating
families, friends, communities, and our entire country.
I have had the privilege of being a DEA Special Agent for
26 years, having worked in Colorado, Florida, Virginia, and of
course New England, covering Connecticut, Rhode Island,
Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont, and my home, New Hampshire.
As I look back on my career and service to the citizens of
the United States, the challenges we face with the ongoing
opioid crisis along with the sophistication, capacity, and
global reach of the Mexican polydrug cartels is what worries
and concerns me the most.
As the Deputy Special Agent in charge of the New England
Field Division, I have seen firsthand the extreme lawlessness
and other atrocities committed by Mexican cartels to maintain
their dominant market in New Hampshire and throughout New
England. The ruthlessness of these cartels combined with the
callous greed is destroying families and communities resulting
in an increase of violence and crime here in the Granite State
and throughout our entire country.
Dangerous and highly sophisticated cartels operating in
both Mexico and the United States have been and will likely
continue to be the most significant source of illicit narcotics
trafficked into and throughout New Hampshire.
As you well know though, illicit fentanyl is devastating
New England one person at a time. Fentanyl originating in
Mexico led the DEA to issue a public safety alert to raise
public awareness that Mexican cartels are putting fentanyl into
pills to look like legitimate pharmaceutical medications. This
cartel strategy results in people believing they are getting
the legitimate prescription drug. Sadly, it has become so
deadly.
If that isn't tragic enough, fentanyl isn't the only drug
that we are encountering in these fake pills. There has been a
vast increase in the availability of Mexican-sourced
methamphetamine. This increase is largely attributed to an
increase in fake pills designed to look like Adderall pills
which have been popular especially on college campuses and
throughout circles of young Americans.
New Hampshire State Police report a more than 7-fold
increase in the volume of meth cases from 2015 to 2021. Clearly
our challenges, especially with deadly fake pills, are immense.
This calculated move from plant-derived drugs to chemically
derived synthetic drugs has become a game changer. It has
created a limitless supply of fentanyl and methamphetamine. As
a result these drugs are flooding our communities in record
amounts.
The model of the drug cartels right now is simple.
Relentless expansion and addiction. They simply don't care if
Americans die. They only want to reach more Americans in
unprecedented ways. This is a moment in time, our moment where
we have to do everything we can to reverse this deadly trend.
DEA is committed to removing as many drugs as possible from
our communities but we are also dedicated to engaging the
public to help keep our communities safe and healthy. This is
why DEA launched the One Pill Can Kill (OPCK) initiative. This
campaign is a multi-faceted approach to remove deadly
counterfeit pills from the streets while also engaging the
community to help prevent further harm caused by these deadly
pills.
This campaign has yielded tremendous results throughout New
Hampshire and the entire country. Over 20 million fake pills
were seized nationally in 2021. This campaign was a full court
press to get the word out and inform parents about how their
kids may also be able to buy fake pills on the internet and via
social media apps. Our website DEA.gov has resources for
parents and educators and provides information on how to detect
if your child may be using drugs and strategies on how to
intervene. Programs such as these have been an invaluable tool
in the fight against opioids here in New Hampshire.
We have also been working to get the word out to New
Hampshire youth. Last fall I, along with Administrator Milgram,
participated in a Virtual Youth Summit with middle and high
school students throughout New Hampshire. In collaboration with
several of our tremendous prevention partners here in the
Granite State, we ensured that the focus of this Summit was to
educate about the dangers of drugs and the benefits of healthy
living.
Working together we can accomplish a lot when it comes to
keeping our children safe and healthy. We reached over 15,000
students that day. This also followed the nation's first ever
Opioid SUMMIT which we conducted in 2017 bringing over 8,000
students into the Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU)
arena to deliver that same critical message.
I am passionate about our work with prevention, outreach,
and young leaders and I will never stop doing that.
Make no mistake, no matter the challenge, DEA will never
stop aggressively pursuing the most dangerous and prolific
criminals trafficking in illicit drugs throughout our
communities. While this is a situation where the cartels are
driving the drug crisis and building new drug markets and new
users, we will not tire in our resolve to keep the children of
our communities safe and drug free.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify before the
Subcommittee here today on this very important issue, and I
look forward to your questions.
Senator Hassan. Thank you very much, Special Agent. Now we
will turn to Commander Ellen Arcieri, Commander of the New
Hampshire Attorney General's (AG) Drug Task Force. Commander
Arcieri oversees the 20 Drug Task Force Investigators assigned
to four regional teams covering designated geographical areas
of New Hampshire. Commander Arcieri most recently served as the
Chief of the Brentwood Police Department and has 35 years of
law enforcement experience.
Welcome, Commander. You are recognized for your opening
statement.
TESTIMONY OF ELLEN M. ARCIERI,\1\ COMMANDER, NEW HAMPSHIRE
ATTORNEY GENERAL'S DRUG TASK FORCE, NEW HAMPSHIRE DEPARTMENT OF
JUSTICE
Mr. Arcieri. Thank you and good morning, ladies and
gentlemen of the Subcommittee. My name is Ellen Arcieri, and I
presently hold the Commander of the New Hampshire Attorney
General's Drug Task Force. The Drug Task Force was created in
1986 under the Attorney General's office as a statewide
multijurisdictional effort to combat the increasing effects
illicit drugs were having on the State of New Hampshire and to
investigate violations of the New Hampshire controlled drug
act.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Ms. Arcieri appears in the Appendix
on page 62.
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The Drug Task Force is made up of investigators from the
AG's Office and police officers from local, county, and State
Police departments. These departments will lend police officers
to the Drug Task Force for a period of several years in an
effort to combat the drug crisis occurring in their
communities.
In exchange, these departments receive funding from the
Edward Byrne Justice Assistance Grant (JAG) to assist in
backfilling the Department's positions left vacant. Presently,
the Drug Task Force has four regional teams servicing central,
western, and northern sections of New Hampshire. These teams
comprise 13 Drug Task Force officers from other police
departments and three New Hampshire Attorney General
investigators to include the Commander, Deputy Commander, and a
New Hampshire Attorney General criminal investigator.
To meet the demands and mission of the New Hampshire
Attorney General's Drug Task Force the following goals were
created fairly recently. First is to combat the proliferation
of illegal narcotics by concentrating enforcement in a
multiagency, multijurisdictional task force that focuses on the
distribution and sale of street level illegal narcotics.
Second, increase collaboration with New Hampshire State
Police, the DEA, HIDTA, the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI), and other State, local, and Federal partners to maximize
resources.
Third, focus on communities in need of a drug enforcement
presence. The top priority are towns and communities with no
investigative presence due to a critical shortage of personnel
and resources. Top priority to the towns and communities that
have dedicated personnel to the drug task force. Investigations
that have potential to develop into long-term, large scale drug
investigations involving other State jurisdictions, the DTF
will work collaboratively with agencies tasked with working
such investigations. These agencies include but are not limited
to the New Hampshire State Police, DEA, HIDTA, FBI, Immigration
and Customs Enforcement, Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms (ATF),
just to name a few of the Federal agencies.
As previously mentioned, one of the goals of the New
Hampshire Attorney General's Drug Task Force is working
collaboratively with numerous agencies. The most recent example
of this cooperation was an investigation initiated by the Drug
Task Force. That was advanced to the next level working
deliberately with DEA, HIDTA, FBI, and the New Hampshire State
Police. This investigation began with undercover purchases of
methamphetamine and fentanyl from street level to mid-level
drug traffickers in central New Hampshire. Through extensive
investigative efforts, this investigation was advanced to an
electronic T3 also known as a wiretap investigation resulting
in the dismantling of an organization distributing large
quantities of methamphetamine, fentanyl, and cocaine.
This organization spanned the States of Massachusetts, New
Hampshire, Rhode Island, Maine, and ties to the Mexican drug
cartels. To accomplish such investigations takes additional
funding for personnel and equipment as well as continued
communication with contributing agencies. The funding for this
investigation was a three-tiered effort between the New
Hampshire Attorney General's Office, the New Hampshire State
Police, and DEA.
The needs for the New Hampshire Attorney General's Task
Force. In 2022 the Drug Task Force received funding through the
COPS Anti-Heroin Task Force program. This funding will enable
the Drug Task Force to purchase essential equipment, training,
and overtime for officers and investigators to perform their
duties more effectively.
However, the most pressing need for the DTF is funding for
additional grant positions as well as increasing the total
amount per grant annually. Presently, the New Hampshire
Attorney General's Drug Task Force will provide $60,000
annually to a police department who furnishes the DTF with an
investigator. This amount does not adequately cover the average
cost of salary, benefits, training, and equipment. Simply put,
this amount does not cover the cost to backfill the vacant
officer's position, resulting in police departments unable to
provide an officer to the DTF. Furthermore, because of the
critical shortage of law enforcement in New Hampshire, the
majority of police departments cannot provide support due to
the need of provide coverage and services to their own
communities. In closing, the optimum situation for the Drug
Task Force would be to, number 1, continue to receive Federal
funding through the COPS Anti-Heroin grant to sustain the
essential needs of equipment, overtime, and training for our
mission; and number 2, to receive sustained additional funding
to increase the number of DTF grant positions available as well
as increase the annual amount per grant. In closing, I would
like to thank everyone on the panel for allowing me the
opportunity to educate you on the New Hampshire Attorney
General's Drug Task Force mission as well as our recent
successes and present challenges that we have shared with our
State and Federal partners.
Senator Hassan. Thank you very much, Commander. Our final
witness today is Major Joseph Ebert, Commander of the
Investigative Services Bureau of the New Hampshire State
Police.
As Commander of the Investigative Services Bureau, Major
Ebert oversees several investigative terms for the New
Hampshire State Police including the Narcotics Investigation
Unit (NIU) and the Terrorism Intelligence Unit (TIU) which both
play an important role in investigating drug trafficking in the
Granite State. Major Ebert has 20 years of experience with the
New Hampshire State Police.
Welcome, Major. You are recognized for your opening
statement.
TESTIMONY OF JOSEPH M. EBERT,\1\ MAJOR, INVESTIGATIVE SERVICES
BUREAU COMMANDER, NEW HAMPSHIRE STATE POLICE
Major Ebert. Good morning. As was mentioned, my name is
Joseph Ebert. I am a Major with the State Police overseeing the
Investigative Services Bureau which is your Detectives from the
New Hampshire State Police. As part of that position I oversee
both the Narcotics Investigations Unit and the Terrorism and
Intelligence Unit. Both of those units are significantly
involved in the challenge of stemming the tide of illegal drugs
into New Hampshire, and by proxy to rates of associated crime,
injury, and death that results from the presence of those drugs
in our communities.
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\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Ebert appears in the Appendix on
page 65.
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Members of the State Police NIU are tasked with complex
undercover narcotics investigations, the management of
confidential informants, and the coordination of case
investigations with numerous law enforcement partners. The TIU
via personnel assigned to the New Hampshire Information and
Analysis Center (NHIAC) are tasked with things like the
exchange of narcotics information and intelligence.
The State of New Hampshire via the Information and Analysis
Center has led the way in drug information exchange and
intelligence exchange both regionally and nationally. The
Center produces a monthly product that has been nationally
recognized known as the Drug Monitoring Initiative (DMI) which
provides data that is used across our societal spectrum for
stakeholders dealing with the effects of illegal narcotics.
This product has played a pivotal role in informing
policymakers, guiding resources, and identifying areas of dire
concern.
The DMI would not be possible without the collaboration of
numerous law enforcement and civilian partners from all levels
of government and civilian communities. The NHIAC also supports
the needs of sworn law enforcement agencies who are tasked with
the enforcement of narcotics laws. Specifically, the NHIAC
provides strategic analysis, case support, and intelligence
exchange related to narcotics investigations.
The Center has employees from agencies including but not
limited to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department
of Homeland Security, the High Intensity Drug Trafficking
program, and several more. The NHIAC also benefits from several
Federal grant programs, the Homeland Security Grant Program
(HSGP), the Emergency Management and Preparedness Grant Program
(EMPG) which respectively support the employment of local law
enforcement and State analysts within the center.
I want to highlight the value of the HSGP program in
particular because it funds local law enforcement officers
within the NHIAC who work with Intelligence Liaison Officers
(ILO). The local relationships and knowledge that each ILO
brings to the center is an invaluable resource to the
intelligence collection and dissemination process within the
State.
The State Police Narcotics Investigations Unit has an
incredibly dangerous job. However, they do not work
unilaterally. Members of the NIU are assigned to various State
and Federal task forces to include the FBI's Major Offender
Task Force, the DEA's HIDTA Task Force, and the New Hampshire
Attorney General's Task Force as well as the United States
Postal Inspectors Task Force. The State Police is involved with
Federal Task Forces because they act as a force multiplier and
because they increase the communication and information
exchange among all levels of law enforcement.
The State of New Hampshire has limited resources, and as a
result collaboration isn't just a concept but a necessity. The
State Police has forged tremendously strong relationships
within the law enforcement community that are all directed
toward increasing the safety of New Hampshire residents and
those who visit our State.
The State Police NIU has been incredibly privileged to be
the recipient of Federal grants and State grants. On the State
level, the State Police receives funding through Operation
Granite Shield which not only funds drug enforcement but also
encourages joint enforcement operations. At the Federal level
the State Police NIU has received funding from the COPS Anti-
Heroin Task Force Grants which have provided resources that
would otherwise likely have not been attainable.
We believe here in New Hampshire we have created a
successful model for drug enforcement which consists of
collaboration, dedication, and unity in the goal of protecting
our communities and preserving life.
Recently, this model for success was again exhibited by the
New Hampshire law enforcement community, led by the Colonel of
the New Hampshire State Police with the creation of the
statewide methamphetamine enforcement incentive. The same model
used to combat opiates was applied to the emerging trends of
methamphetamine, and many similar gains have been seen.
The State Police is proud of our enforcement and
intelligence exchange efforts. However, we know that the
successes and gains we have made in protecting society from the
ills of narcotics are in large part only possible because of
our partners and the support we received in the form of grant
funding.
I have been honored to speak this morning about the many
progressive and successful drug enforcement efforts that the
State Police and the State of New Hampshire law enforcement
community currently participate in.
It is truly important to my agency and me that each Member
of this committee and anyone who hears this testimony
understands that the New Hampshire State Police will always
strive to improve the safety of our residents and our visitors,
and further, we will continue to work toward carrying on the
honorable traditions of the State Police that so many troopers
in our history have sacrificed so much to uphold.
With that, I thank you for the opportunity to testify, and
I look forward to your questions.
Senator Hassan. Thank you so much, Major. What we are going
to do now is allow each of us rounds of questions. As I look at
our timing, we have good time so this committee does 7-minute
rounds of questions. We should be able to do at least a couple
of rounds. I will ask you all to try to be relatively brief in
your answers because we will be able to come back, and my hope
is that at the end of the hearing to give you each an
opportunity for any kind of closing comment you want to make.
If something occurs to you and a question has not been directed
right at you, you will get a chance to make the point, but also
feel free to raise your hand if you want to add something.
Let me start with a question to Special Agent Millhollin
and Special Agent DeLena. You both discussed security along our
Southern Border and how it affects communities in New
Hampshire. Transnational Criminal Organizations operating out
of Mexico smuggle drugs over the Southern Border before they
are distributed across the country. What are Homeland Security
Investigations and DEA doing to stop manufacturing of drugs
such as fentanyl in Mexico? Are there particular challenges
that you are encountering that Congress may be able to help
alleviate?
We will start with you, Special Agent Millhollin.
Mr. Millhollin. Thank you for that question, and thank you,
Chairwoman, for all your efforts to support HSI and efforts to
support law enforcement throughout the years. We appreciate
that.
Senator Hassan. Thank you.
Mr. Millhollin. As I spoke a little bit in my opening
statement, HSI has over 80 offices in more than 50 countries.
One of those offices is in Mexico. It is our largest overseas
office. I had the pleasure of serving there for 4 years and
overseeing not only our office in Mexico City but 7 outlying
offices there which as you can imagine has a lot of
difficulties that comes with it.
One of the main ways that we work there is through our
Transnational Criminal Investigative Units. These are vetted
units provided by the Mexican government. They are local
investigators that work directly with us on investigations of
joint interest of the United States and Mexico. We recruit
those folks. They come into our office. We train them, we send
them to the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia.
We bring them back to Mexico after that extensive training and
put them to work, fund them, and equip them with the things
they need to do that.
One of the unique ways that HSI works these types of cases
is we really come in from a financial angle. We know and a lot
of my colleagues say we can not interdict or seize our way out
of this problem. We really have to attack those financial
networks, take out the assets that these drug cartels have to
really affect them. We do that through our vetted units in
Mexico. We have had a lot of luck with that over the years.
One area that we could really maybe use a little bit of
help in is being able to pay those vetted unit members a salary
supplement. Obviously, they come from agencies where they do
not make a lot of money. To incentivize them to come over to
our agency, to be able to recruit and retain the brightest
folks from there would be very useful to us. Thank you for your
question.
Senator Hassan. Thank you. Special Agent DeLena.
Mr. DeLena. Thank you, Madam Chair. It is obvious that the
work in Mexico is vital to everything that is happening
throughout the United States. It is the goal of DEA always to
try to map these networks to take these investigations
literally from Mexico to Main Street, and that's our goal every
single time.
We have a lot of challenges. The assistance that we could
always seek is enhanced cooperation and collaboration with the
Mexican government to build up our special investigative units
as Mr. Millhollin talked about on the HSI front. We need to be
able to collaborate with the Mexican military, the Mexican
government, and Mexican law enforcement to be able to fully
enhance these investigations as far as we can. What we are
doing now in all 11 offices throughout Mexico is trying to
target the highest level violators within the Sinaloa cartel
and Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) who ultimately are
impacting the East Coast of the United States more than anybody
right here in New Hampshire as well. It is those drugs that are
ending up in all of our communities, and that is what we need
to work to put a stop to.
Senator Hassan. Thank you very much. This is a question to
Assistant Director Manning. We have heard that a lot of the
drugs and other contraband smuggled into the country are
smuggling through ports of entry. Can you elaborate on how
Customs and Border Protection targets and inspects cargo
vehicles and passengers that it believes may be smuggling drugs
across the border?
Mr. Manning. CBP uses a multilayered enforcement approach
to securing the borders. Using enhanced communication with our
foreign and our local law enforcement, we use comprehensive
training programs for our frontline officers and canines, and
then we use the use of emerging technology to really put the
best tools foward for our officers.
We essentially look at the needle in a haystack. We deal
with 490,000 passenger pedestrians a day and 98,000 trucks a
day. What we are trying to do is use all those tools and
resources to stop the nefarious actors, and let the lawful
passengers and traffic and go through.
It is critical for us that we need to look at our
adversaries are continually getting better. They have unlimited
resources. We have to look at the ports of the future. What's
our goals and desires to get to have a modern port of entry and
protect our borders. Currently we scan approximately 2 percent
of all passenger vehicles and 15 percent of commercial
vehicles.
With modern technology and the support of Congress, we will
be able to get to 40 percent and 70 percent by 2023. We need to
look at the comprehensive modern port in the future, how we can
really move that forward and in that time.
Senator Hassan. Great. Are you able to do research about
developing new technologies and solutions to interdict drugs
that are crossing the border including drugs concealed on
people? Do you have resources to kind of do the research and
think ahead of the curve a bit?
Mr. Manning. Yes, ma'am. We currently are piloting some
technology in multiple places that is for actually looking at
pedestrians. We are still piloting that right now and we are
assessing the operational value of it. As far as our
intelligence groups, we are continually working with our State
and local partners to really get and to maximize the impact of
our seizures. We can't seize our way out of this. We have to go
after the networks. Every CBP seizure is an opportunity for our
law enforcement partners to make a case and to take down a TCO
and take down a gang.
Senator Hassan. Thank you. I am going to yield the rest of
my time and ask Congresswoman Kuster to start her rounds of
questions.
Mr. Kuster. Thank you, Senator Hassan, and thank you again
for convening this incredibly important, fascinating but
chilling presentation.
I want to begin my remarks by thanking all of the Members
and witnesses today for the discussion thus far on efforts to
stop the flow of illicit drugs into the Granite State. In the
recent final report from the Commission on Combatting Synthetic
Opioid Trafficking, the Commission weighed the need to include
a stronger understanding of the demand for opioids as a
critical factor that attracts illegal suppliers. Congress
established this commission to examine the causes of the influx
of synthetic opioids to understand how to reduce the
trafficking of the drugs and to identify solutions to mitigate
a worsening overdose death crisis.
The report concluded, and I quote, the supply of illicit
fentanyl cannot be permanently stopped through enforcement
alone, and a number of you have said we won't confiscate our
way out of this. Only temporarily disruptive before another
cartel, another trafficking method or analogue steps in to fill
the market that addiction creates. The United States and
Mexican efforts can disrupt the flow of synthetic opioids
across the U.S. borders, but, and I emphasize, real progress
can come only by pairing illicit synthetic opioid supply
disruption with decreasing the domestic U.S. demand for these
drugs.
Ultimately, it is nearly impossible to reduce the
availability of synthetic opioids through efforts solely
focused on supply. In fact, it is the pull of demand that
continues to drive supply. That is why I introduced the Stop
Fentanyl Act which supports a comprehensive public health and
safety approach to the epidemic through improved data sharing,
investments in affordable fentanyl detection devices, and
Department of Justice Forensic Laboratory Grants, policies that
would improve access to overdose reversal drugs and to
medication assistant treatment.
Let me start with Ms. Arcieri. I appreciate that in your
testimony you quoted Grafton County Attorney Hornick who
stated, while we certainly cannot incarcerate our out of the
opioid crisis, if we hold accountable those who prey on the
addicted, we can hopefully start making progress in this fight.
I could not agree more. We are not going to incarcerate out
of the crisis. Much of our conversation this morning has
appropriately focused on law enforcement and disrupting the
supply of illicit drugs, but I would like to take this
opportunity to look at the criminal justice system more broadly
and discuss its role in reducing demand.
As a second wave of the epidemic flooded our communities
with heroin, Sullivan County here in New Hampshire was faced
with incredibly high recidivism rates and an overcrowded jail.
The Superintendent there had a decision to make. Spend $42
million of taxpayer funds on building a new jail or 7 million
to bring treatment into the existing jail. He decided on the
latter, bringing medication-assisted treatment and mental
health services into the jail to help those battling substance
abuse disorder.
Importantly, this approach also included social supports
for the individuals for a year following their release, whether
it be relocation services, job training, child care, snow
tires, to enable them to continue on with their lives. This was
a critical piece to ensuring the success of the justice
involved. The result of bringing health care into the jail was
a drop in the recidivism rate in Sullivan County from 54
percent to 18 percent. By offering treatment and addressing the
demand for illicit drugs, the cycle of addiction and
incarceration ended. This approach saved lives and importantly
saved taxpayer dollars.
It was a similar situation when I visited the Concord
Women's Prison right before Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)
started. The majority of incarcerated woman in New Hampshire
suffered from addiction, and one thing that I learned that day,
100 percent of the inmates suffered from, and are victims of
trauma--75 percent sexual assault, 25 percent domestic violence
or abuse and neglect in their childhood. Though the prison is
able to provide medication-assisted treatment for substance use
disorder, greater investments in health care and coordinated
support to ensure successful re-entry is key to breaking this
cycle.
This is the crux of the issue for me on the treatment side.
Over 50 years ago, 1965, the Medicaid program was established.
It did not allow for coverage of the justice-involved
population. There is an exclusion. On the day a person enters
into incarceration, they lose their health care coverage. Maybe
in 1965 that assumption made sense. There would be an infirmary
in the jail. They could fix a broken arm, give you Tylenol for
headache, but that's not the case today as we face this
addiction epidemic.
The Medicaid Inmate exclusion is a Draconian policy that
hurts those with substance abuse disorder, mental illness, and
trauma who cycle in and out of our justice system at great
expense to our society. There are currently 7 States who have
applied for waivers to expand care to justice-involved
individuals and my legislation will repeal the exclusion policy
for every State and end this outdated policy that's fueling the
cycle of addiction and incarceration.
Again, Ms. Arcieri, thank you for your testimony today
outlining some of the alternative programs to incarceration.
Could you discuss what programs in the justice system you have
been successful in supporting those struggling with substance
use disorder and thereby reducing demand for illicit drugs.
What have you seen work here in New Hampshire?
Ms. Arcieri. I believe you are going off a different
statement that I submitted, but----
Ms. Kuster. I am sorry.
Ms. Arcieri. That is quite all right if I can get to that.
I do talk about that statement.
I think to answer the question I talked about some of the
alternative programs in that initial statement, and in theory,
it's much needed. The issue that we have seen on a State level
are the amount of times that someone is arrested and convicted
and receiving suspended sentences. I can use an example of,
from that initial statement that I had.
Ms. Kuster. Are they able to get access to treatment or no?
Ms. Arcieri. Yes, but they are still offending while they
are in that program, in similar programs. When an offender
continues to repeat offend, not just two times, three times and
four times, there is no level of accountability, there's no
deterrence with the repeat offenders, and what I'm advocating
for is when we were encountering that situation that we hold
them more accountable, and if that means that they are going to
be incarcerated in either county jail or State prison and they
have access to those programs, then that's successful or
potentially can be successful.
The issue with deterrence especially with what we do when
we work with what we call informants, back in the days 10, 15
years ago, there was a level of deterrence. When someone was
arrested, they would cooperate with law enforcement in an
active capacity, and there is no level there now. On what we do
on the ground level, we need confidential informants or sources
to provide us intelligence and information and also active in
cooperation. Whether that's an individual making buys or
introducing an undercover, that's simply not there so we don't
have the intelligence and the active cooperation that we once
did.
What ends up happening is we start falling back on other
investigative needs that are not as effective.
Senator Hassan. Thank you. I am going to move on to
Congressman Pappas now for his first round of questions.
Mr. Pappas. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you again to our
panel for your comments here today. I think many of you touched
on the picture of in terms of substances coming into this
country, coming into New Hampshire, is every changing. If we
talked about 10 years ago, you might have been more focused on
heroin. We know now that the focus is on fentanyl analogues,
and meth among other substances, pills, and the way that it's
getting here obviously continues to change and evolve.
I wanted to zero in on the issue of fentanyl analogues and
the legislation around permanent scheduling and maybe I could
throw it open to the panel about why this tool will be
important for law enforcement to be able to respond to this
threat. We know that fentanyl and its analogues are a hundred
times more potent than morphine. Clearly they are deadly
substances that we can't tolerate. I am wondering if you can
comment on the effort to achieve permanent scheduling for those
analogues.
Mr. DeLena. Sure, Congressman. I will jump in first. As I
stated in my statement, 104,000 Americans died this past year
of a drug overdose, 65 percent of which were attributed to
fentanyl. We need to be able to move fast and fluidly. As you
just said in your question, if we were here years ago, we may
have been talking about prescription opioids, legitimate
prescription opioids, and then fentanyl and then heroin, heroin
mixed with fentanyl. It is constantly evolving. It is
constantly changing. We, too, all of us here on this panel need
to be able to move equally as fast as the criminal cartels do.
As I said, their model is expansion and addiction. They
have pushed drugs like crystal methamphetamine which was
predominantly a West Coast drug to the East Coast. They have
now pushed fentanyl which was an East Coast drug to the West
Coast.
We are seeing that, that expansion. We need to be able to
respond in realtime to these ever changing analogues that they
put forward so that's why it would be critically important for
us here. Thank you.
Mr. Manning. Going off of the realtime and the need for
this to be as quickly as possible, we have deployed mobile
operating labs in our mail facilities and in our largest border
crossings so we can quickly and swiftly identify these
substances and analogues and get them over to our investigative
partners so they can start the cases on it. So yes.
Mr. Pappas. Thanks very much. Maybe I could ask our State
folks this question. Obviously, we have a number of individuals
from local law enforcement represented here today. Can you talk
about the interaction, we talked about partnership and
collaboration and all the Task Forces that you all are a part
of. Can you talk about the role that local law enforcement can
play in these efforts and how we communicate with local law
enforcement from the Federal level on down and if you feel like
that's adequate and is working so that they understand at the
street level and the community level how that threat is
evolving and how they can be an important partner.
Mr. Ebert. Congressman, I would be happy to try and answer
that question. The first in terms of communication, a great
deal of the communication that comes from the Federal
Government is shared with our local partners through our Fusion
Center, and I think it would be best to ask the local law
enforcement themselves if they feel like they are getting that
message clearly, but I certainly hope that they are, and that's
a goal of us at the Fusion Center.
In terms of our collaboration and cooperation with our
local agencies, it is an invaluable resource. As I mentioned in
my statement, we cannot conduct at the State level the
enforcement efforts in dealing with narcotics that we need to
in communities without the local knowledge first. The local
police officers are often aware of the players who are involved
as well as the areas that are areas of concern. Without that
knowledge and without involving the local agencies, we simply
can't get to where we need to be with enforcing the laws.
Mr. Pappas. Thank you. Commander.
Ms. Arcieri. On that note, too, as far as collaboration
with the local law enforcement, I can use an example here. We
have and throughout the State they have Chiefs meetings, if you
will, or County Association meetings between the different law
enforcement Police Chiefs and the Sheriffs in the community,
and those are held monthly, sometimes every other month, and
issues are discussed during that time with was what's going on
in that community, in that county, whether it's personnel
staffing, intelligence, legislative updates, legal updates, and
so on and so forth, that kind of keeps us in the loop.
In addition to that there's intelligence meetings for those
different regions. A most recent example would be our Coos
County where they had an intelligence meeting sponsored by
State Police, and our DTF were able to get surveillance out on
this individual that was threatening law enforcement. They
communicated with local law enforcement, they were able to
apprehend this individual after a high speed pursuit and take
that individual into custody that had numerous firearms in the
vehicle and also on his person. There's an example of how that
information gets shared.
Being a recent Police Chief myself in a small town, in
Brentwood, what I found and I know that a lot of police chiefs
in the area will probably say the same thing I'm about to tell
you is that we are strapped with a critical shortage of law
enforcement and constant turnover. One, because it takes a lot
to be in this profession, and two, a lot of them are not able
to be eligible to be in the profession. They can't get past the
background investigation. They might not be able to pass a
physical agility test. They might not be able to pass the oral
board, the psychological examination, the polygraph, all that
goes into it just to get in the door. Then we send them off to
the Academy for 16 weeks, and we hope that they are able to
sustain that. They come back to a small agency where they are
paid $22 an hour to start and the average age is 21, 22, and we
put them out there in the field training program as best as we
can. We do the best job that we can with the training with the
resources that we have.
We put them through an extensive field training program and
then when we get past that we put them out working midnight
shifts because that's what they start out doing. We wish we had
more supervision and mentoring, but we are so short-staffed
that we don't have that available. We are asking these young
officers to perform in highly critical crisis situations.
I will use an example, when I was the Chief, I hired an
individual when he was 22 years old. I swore him in which was
great, was a very exciting time for him and his family, and his
mother turned to me and said please keep him safe. I cannot
tell you the awesome responsibility that resonated with me.
Since that time he's had to cover suicides, he's had to
administer cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) as I have myself
as a Police Chief if you just don't have the resources out
there.
You are the first responders reacting and responding to
highly critical situations with domestics, assaults, mental
health issues, and overdose epidemics. In the span of one year,
that's what that officer has been exposed to. That is the
plight of working in a small town in a local agency in the
State of New Hampshire and probably nationwide.
Mr. Pappas. Thank you for that perspective and sharing the
important work that local law enforcement do here in New
Hampshire. We are so grateful for it, and it's an important
piece of this overall conversation. I will yield back so we can
get to another round.
Senator Hassan. Thank you, Congressman, and just a note to
thank all of you, both State and Federal, but also all our
local law enforcement for the extraordinary work you do in very
difficult circumstances.
I want to start my round with a question to Special Agents
DeLena and Millhollin and Major Ebert. Parts of the drug trade
have migrated to the internet, both through social media and on
the dark web. I recently introduced a bipartisan bill with
Senator Cornyn, the Dark Web Interdiction Act, which aims to
strengthen the ability to go after drug trafficking on the dark
web and increase penalties for using the dark web to sell
deadly drugs.
How are DEA, Homeland Security Investigations, and the New
Hampshire State Police tackling the growing problem of the
online drug trade and what more can Congress do to help, and we
will start with you, Special Agent Millhollin.
Mr. Millhollin. Thank you for that question, and thank you
for that bill you introduced. I think that's going to be a
really good thing.
I think we combat this in a couple different ways. We have
really unique undercover authorities through HSI to combat all
cybercrime. The rise in the dark web is obviously one of those
and one of those we are tracking very closely. We have several
groups we are standing up throughout the United States that are
targeting the dark crime exclusively, and as you know all
transactions pretty much that happen on the dark web are with
cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency is increasingly coming into our
investigations as something we are tracking. As far as many
money laundering it's very difficult.
To be able to recruit and retain the right people to work
those types of investigations is a whole different applicant
pool than we have ever looked into in the last 20 years. Being
able to bring those people over, it's been tough, and that's
something that we have been looking at is if we can get some
kind of cyber incentive pay to bring those people over and make
sure we are recruiting the best people from the private sector
to do that.
One other thing that I bring up with cryptocurrency is
every country in the world has different regulations on how
they handle cryptocurrency, United States as well, and so
trying to streamline all those together is increasingly
difficult to make significant investigations and inroads into
those transnational criminal organizations.
One way that we can possibly help tie those together is
through some kind of global regulatory type of standards so
that we could all start on the same level playing field. Then
finally I would invite you to come down and see our Cyber
Crimes Center in Fairfax, Virginia. It is a huge state-of-the-
art facility where you can kind of see what we are doing on the
front line of the dark net right now.
Senator Hassan. Thank you very much. Special Agent DeLena.
Mr. DeLena. Thank you, Madam Hassan. Thank you for the
question.
As I mentioned in my statement, DEA launched the One Pill
Can Kill initiative. A major part of that was trying to raise
awareness to the drugs that were being sold on the internet and
using social media apps that many children are commonly using
every single day and buying pills that were unfortunately laced
with fentanyl and in some cases, methamphetamine. But it's not
just young people that are using that. Many Americans are going
online to try to buy drugs at a cheaper price, prescription
drugs that they may need. At the end of the day, they are being
fooled as to what they end up getting. DEA's Special Operations
Division, which is based in Virginia, works with all agencies
throughout the government and many local partners as well to
try to expand the investigations that we are doing domestically
and internationally. Obviously, we would like to host you there
at any time to get in and see exactly what's going on inside
the Special Operations Division.
With over 71 nations and 91 different cities represented by
DEA, it's imperative that all of us are enhancing our cyber
capabilities, but this, too, as Special Agent Millhollin
mentioned is difficult. It is not easy to attract the right
applicants at all times and to be able to train them. We also
need the equipment to be able to keep up with these billion
dollar cartels who don't have those challenges or those
difficulties. They get the best equipment when they want it and
in the government, sometimes that can be a challenge.
Senator Hassan. For sure. Major.
Mr. Ebert. Thank you for the question, Senator. At the
State level, we found our greatest level of success in
combatting dark web purchases from partnering with our Federal
partners. Most notably, the Drug Enforcement Agency but also
more recently the United States Postal Inspection Service.
It is very important to highlight that although the
procedure in which drugs are purchased on the dark web is
incredibly difficult to track down, those drugs have to make
their way into our country in one mechanism or another. We
found that trying to interdict them at the shipping point can
be successful. We have assigned troopers to that Task Force in
hopes that will stem the tide of illegal drugs that are coming
through dark web purchases.
Senator Hassan. Thank you, and that leads into my next
question because I was going to ask Assistant Director Manning
and Special Agent Millhollin about the work you are all doing
with the Postal Service as well because we know that Customs
border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations work
with the Postal Inspection Service. Can you talk about your
work with the Postal Service and private sector partners to
investigate and disrupt drug trafficking facilitated by mail or
parcel delivery, and are there additional resources or data
sources you need to more effectively target and interdict drugs
trafficked through the mail and express delivery services?
We will start with you, Assistant Director Manning, and
then go to Special Agent Millhollin.
Mr. Manning. We work hand in hand with the Postal Service.
We have actually recently we have four Postal Service employees
that are embedded in our centers. We have a data scientist, a
postal inspector and two analysts. As they mentioned before, we
need to make sure that we are doing everything in our power to
get the information into our system so we can identify illicit
packages as they are coming through. The Synthetics Trafficking
and Overdose Prevention (STOP) Act has helped us significantly.
We have seen fentanyl basically stop coming through the mail,
and it's coming down the Southern Border, and we continue to
work with our investigative partners to continue to get that
information into our systems.
To go back to our State and local partners, even the local
information we get is the local smallest investigation in the
small town, we are able to actually identify and take down
whole dark websites based off of that information we get and
put in our systems, but all hand in hand with HSI and postal
inspectors.
Senator Hassan. Great. Thank you.
Mr. Millhollin. We work this hand in hand through our
Border Enforcement Security Task Force. We have only 80 of
these Task Forces throughout the United States. We have over
2000 Task Force officers from State and local departments
assigned to that. We have them located in all the international
mail facilities so that they can work the follow up
investigation of anything that CBP is seizing at those
facilities.
One of the ways that we work obviously is through the
Postal Inspection Service. Work very closely with them. They
are on all those Task Forces. Operation Die Another Day, I
think you have been briefed on was an operation we worked for a
long time through our best units that was targeting the
importation of pill presses that were coming into our
communities, being able to press these small fentanyl pills. We
had a lot of success with that. One of the areas that we
struggle a little bit on is to get the right people from those
State and local agencies on to those Task Forces. A lot of the
departments aren't able to give up those people that we need.
To be able to pay their salary, and it would be very helpful
for us to be able to supplement those local departments and
make sure they are on these Task Forces.
Senator Hassan. Thank you very much. We are hearing a
significant and important theme which is resources and people,
and people are the most important resource along with the
technology and the other things we have talked about.
Congresswoman.
Mr. Kuster. Thank you, Madam Chair, and I wanted to echo
that comment. Every single one of you at every level from the
smallest towns like a Brentwood Chief of Police all the way up
through to State and Federal and all of these agencies have
talked about workforce, recruitment, training, equipment,
retention, right down to the hourly wage. Right up to the most
sophisticated new techniques in cryptocurrency and the dark
web, and clearly the three of us here are here today to
understand your needs for funding, funding the police at every
level, and I think that's a really important theme today, and
you have our strong support.
I want to turn to Mr. DeLena if I could. I serve on the
House Energy and Commerce Committee, and recently we heard from
both the Office of National Drug Control Policy and the Drug
Enforcement Agency on the administration's recommendations as
Representative Pappas mentioned on the scheduling of fentanyl-
related substances.
The Office of National Drug Control Policy emphasized the
need for a comprehensive approach to addressing fentanyl
analogues, and I know our Task Force had a hearing a few years
back with the DEA, and I remember the testimony was just
chilling. They were talking about criminal chemists in China at
that time that were literally changing one molecule and getting
around our scheduling.
The COVID pandemic has shown the value in realtime data
availability and exchange when faced with a crisis. Knowing the
number of cases, the types of cases, the number of vaccines,
number of tests, et cetera. We know the number of COVID-19
cases and deaths the very next day. Yet we still wait months
for overdose data and critical information on the development
of new and more powerful drugs.
How can we better access data on synthetic opioids quickly
in both the public safety and the public health space? I will
ask you, and if then there are others that want to weigh in on
that, that would be very helpful. What resources do you need
from us for that?
Mr. DeLena. Congresswoman, thank you for the question.
Working for Administrator Milgram, it is very clear that one of
her binding principles is the expansion of data in all that we
do every day, and she is bringing that forward to DEA every
single day.
When thinking about your question, a few things immediately
jump out to me. We constantly need to find ways to connect, and
while New Hampshire is the gold standard for collaboration as
you see from the people here in this room, we need to be able
to do that throughout the entire United States and throughout
all of our offices. DEA needs to be able to collect the
prescription drug monitoring program (PDMP), information from
local States which will help us get a better look at who is
getting drugs prescribed to them, either illicitly or legally
in some cases.
But we need to map the overdose data. That's challenging.
While New Hampshire again was ahead of everybody in terms of
how we do that and a lot of that comes from the Information and
Analysis Center that Major Ebert talked about, it's the data of
overdose responses and Narcan administration. We need to be
able to look at that, to take that holistic approach to how we
can better serve all of our communities. We talk about Narcan
and being administered throughout New Hampshire, but sadly,
most of that Narcan is going into communities and neighborhoods
and to people who are dealing with what they think is opioid
and fentanyl abuse.
We are seeing now polydrug use where cocaine is being
illicitly laced with fentanyl. We are seeing clusters of
overdoses in locations throughout the United States where
people are thinking they are taking cocaine only to find out
that somewhere in that supply chain somebody added fentanyl to
it. We need to make sure that we are getting that information
in realtime to the law enforcement communities but also to our
leaders so that we can ensure things like Narcan and naloxone
ends up in the right hands.
Mr. Kuster. Anyone else want to comment on resources needed
for data sharing?
Mr. Ebert. Congresswoman, I will mention that Special Agent
DeLena brought up a great point in terms of being able to
quickly disseminate that information. I think in terms of the
more information that can be shared with us in realtime the
more that those barriers can be broken down.
We are always looking to balance personal privacy with the
need to get law enforcement out information, and though I won't
point to a specific item, I can certainly say having overseen
the intelligence unit that there are many barriers that exist
where the line between personal privacy and intelligence
exchanges is very difficult.
I would say continued support from Congress to help us
break down those barriers, to always keep in mind personal
privacy and the need for that, but to really push for getting
the information realtime as fast as we can to our Fusion
Centers so we can disseminate that out to all of our law
enforcement partners.
Mr. Kuster. Hopefully, there were lessons that can be
learned from COVID 19 and from data collection, and there were
privacy issues there as well, and we overcame them in the face
of a highly contagious pandemic. I hope we can overcome them in
the face of what is determined to be a deadly crisis as well,
and with that I will yield back.
Senator Hassan. Thank you, Congresswoman Kuster and
Congressman Pappas. You are recognized for your round of
questions.
Mr. Pappas. Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to thank you for
submitting that legislation in the Senate on the dark web issue
because I have heard about that in communities here in New
Hampshire. You have all identified why that is a serious issue.
With your agreement we will work to submit that in the House to
make sure the other side of the Capitol could see some action
on it.
Senator Hassan. That would be great.
Mr. Pappas. I want to zero in on the issue of China. It's
been mentioned here a number of times. This is a situation
where the picture in China is changing in terms of what we are
seeing flow into Mexico and into the United States. I am
wondering if you all have some comments if we could start with
you, Mr. Millhollin, on the role that China plays in the drug
supply chain.
Mr. Millhollin. Thanks for the question. As we remember at
the beginning of this epidemic, fentanyl was coming into the
United States directly from China. A little bit of diplomatic
pressure changed that and it was going directly into Mexico and
being smuggled into the United States.
Now what we are seeing is that is not happening anymore.
Precursor chemicals are coming directly into Mexico and now
what we see is pre-precursor chemicals coming directly into
Mexico that are then being synthesized to bring that fentanyl
into the United States.
One way that we have been able to make some significant
inroads is this is through Operation Hydra. It is a complex
financial operation that HSI runs analyzing financial
transactions between multiple countries including the United
States, Mexico, and China to be able to target those precursor
chemicals coming into Mexico from China. We have been able to
seize over one million pounds of those precursor chemicals in
the last several years.
One recent seizure out of our Mexico City office was 750
kilograms of a precursor that when that was converted to
fentanyl within 14,000 kilograms of fentanyl, 30 thousands
pounds. Can you imagine that's more fentanyl in that one
seizure than was seized on the whole Southwest Border in the
last year. That's one shipment.
But I think it is also important to keep our eyes on that.
If we can stop China from bringing these precursor chemicals
into Mexico, the cartels are going to divert to another
country. India has significant supplies of these precursor
chemicals that they could bring in right away, too, so I think
we have to keep identifying these other countries and keep
pushing out our borders where we can.
Mr. DeLena. Thank for the question, Congressman, and I
thought my partner here answered really well. I thought back
though to a time that I traveled to Mexico, I see Marshal
Willard here, and we took some police executives from New
England down into Mexico to try to understand exactly just how
big this threat is, and we had the occasion to go into a lab, a
production lab in the jungle, and, the amount of chemicals with
labels from China that were throughout that entire process was
absolutely incredible.
We do work hard trying to stop the flow of those illicit
chemicals as they are leaving China, as they are arriving in
Mexico. Obviously, we are targeting the highest level violators
in Mexico to try to disrupt those chemicals from ever getting
in those hands, but as I said earlier, with this move to
synthetics they don't have to worry about a grow cycle, a grow
season or a plant product, and that has been a complete game
changer to the amount of drugs that they are producing, and
ultimately what we are seeing right here at home in New
Hampshire.
Mr. Pappas. Thank you for your comments about that threat,
and I look forward to continuing the conversation about how we
can help. I will yield back my time.
Senator Hassan. Thank you very much, Congressman. I have
more questions. I will do them for about a 7-minute round, and
then we will see if you guys have any follow up. Does that make
sense? You are welcome to a full another round.
I wanted to give Major Ebert and Commander Arcieri an
opportunity here with your Federal colleagues at the table and
with a number of Federal and State and local folks and us here.
We talk a lot about the importance of coordination and
information sharing between and among Federal, State, and local
law enforcement including outside task forces, and how
important that is, but from your perspective, how effective has
the coordination and information sharing been between Federal
law enforcement and State and local law enforcement in New
Hampshire, what are the primary drivers of success, what were
the obstacles to effective coordination and information
sharing, and last, anything Congress can do to help.
We will start with you, Major, and then Commander Arcieri.
Mr. Ebert. Certainly. Thank you for the question, Senator.
I think the most important thing for this panel and anybody who
hears this testimony to know is that here in the State of New
Hampshire, I think we all really pride ourselves on
collaboration at all levels. I know the representatives from
all the Federal agencies by first name as does everyone else
who is in law enforcement. I know them by face. I know them to
know that if I need them, if I need resources from them, the
State Police needs collaboration from them, they are going to
provide that. I can't emphasize enough that here in the State
of New Hampshire because it is such a small law enforcement
community, we do collaborate across every spectrum.
In terms of information exchange and intelligence exchange,
I would say that we have an optimum model for that intelligence
exchange. We really have very, very few barriers with our
Federal partners in receiving that information and then
disseminating it out to partners who are on a need-to-know
basis.
In terms of what Congress may be able to do to try to
support us, I think there's two distinct areas that come to
mind.
The first is the voice of a Congresswoman, a Congressman,
or a Senator carries so much weight and that unified voice in
support of law enforcement goes a tremendously long way. We
really need this. At this moment where there is so much
criticism of law enforcement, that supportive voice lends
itself to improving the morale of the rank and file law
enforcement. The first thing I would say is that united voice
in support of law enforcement.
The second thing is long-term funding. What we typically
will see is a 2 or 3 year grant which is tremendous. It is
tremendous. It gets us training, gets us equipment, but what it
does not allow for us to do is to ask for positions because as
certainly the three of you know, we need to absorb those
positions into the State budget at the end of the Federal
grant, and it's simply too short a period of time, a 2 or 3-
year window for the New Hampshire legislature to pass a budget
that will then absorb those positions in. Longer term structure
of funding would be tremendously helpful to give the New
Hampshire legislature time to absorb those positions in.
Senator Hassan. All right. Commander, your thoughts?
Ms. Arcieri. I would say for the most part we have done a
very good job with sharing information. I used the example of a
recent investigation that we had that started on our level
which was undercover street level purchases, and by recognizing
the importance and where we could take that investigation, we
employed the services of State Police and DEA. That is not done
in an isolated circumstance. A lot of it is information sharing
and making it happen. A lot of meetings to share the
information and deciding who is going to have what
responsibilities in these different investigations. That is
critical for the success of what we do.
As I mentioned before, we have regular intelligence
meetings which are attended by local, State, county officials,
and Federal officials as well so we are all on the same page as
far as what we are facing in each different area.
As far as what the Federal Government would be able to
provide to law enforcement, I am going to mirror what Major
Ebert had said, being the leaders and fostering an environment
of greater accountability in the criminal justice services with
repeat offenders. Many in the law enforcement community would
agree that there needs to be more emphasis on effective
rehabilitation programs with drug addicted offenders.
However, when offenders are arrested and convicted numerous
times and receiving suspended sentences on all convictions, it
does not foster a level of deterrence, and I think what goes
along with that is the recruitment and retainment issue that we
have in law enforcement. To be able to provide more support in
that area.
The other area that I would like to address in addition to
what Major Ebert had addressed which pretty much follows suit
with the Drug Task Force is we have many senior officers, if
you will, that are now retired or getting ready to retire that
have 20-plus years of experience which is very critical. When
they retire, a lot of them leave the profession, and they are
not able to give back. On a State level, when they retire, they
are limited to 26 hours a week generally speaking if they want
to come back into the profession. It used to 32 hours. Having
26 hours a week is very difficult.
If we could have some insight as to the importance of
having those retired officers, if you will, one of my best
investigators, employees, is a retired officer, and he brings a
level of experience and especially in these critical times
where you have young officers as I talked about, they need a
great level of mentoring and supervision, and we get that with
our senior officers that are getting ready to retire.
Senator Hassan. Thank you. I have a couple of more
questions, but let me also thank not only all of you but all of
the men and women in law enforcement, and if there is one thing
that I hear from Granite Staters on a regular basis it is how
grateful they are to you and the men and women you work with
for the work you do keeping our communities safe.
I will also note that you go into just about any community
in New Hampshire and right at the forefront of whatever
community work needs to be done is a member of law enforcement
just pitching in, whether it's coaching a team or whether it is
helping at a food bank. We are deeply appreciative for the work
you do, and we are also appreciative to your families because
very few of us have a job where our loved ones have to worry
whether we are going to come home safe at night. We are all
really grateful to your families, too.
Let me follow up with a couple of more questions. Then I
will check in with my colleagues and I will give you guys a
chance to, my final question for you all so you can be thinking
about it is just if you had one recommendation for us all to
take away for today what would that be. We will do one final
round with all of you.
I want to follow up though first with a question to Special
Agent DeLena because 6 months ago, Special Agent, I wrote a
letter to DEA Administrator Milgram about the dangerous rise in
counterfeit pills which are often indistinguishable from
legitimate medication but as you pointed out can be laced with
dangerous drugs like meth and fentanyl. People think they are
getting a legitimate prescription medication, and they are not.
That letter that I sent was based on a WMUR News 9 report
that featured you talking about how this issue keeps you up at
night, and that really stood out to me, especially because
these pills are often marketed to teenagers usually as we have
discussed over social media.
I spoke with Administrator Milgram about this issue a few
months ago, but I am hoping to hear from you about how this
issue has evolved over the past 6 months and what we are now
seeing on the ground in terms of counterfeit pills. It was
great to hear, Special Agent Millhollin, that we have had some
success with going after the pill presses, but can you just
talk to me, Special Agent DeLena, about what you are now seeing
on the ground?
Mr. DeLena. Thank you for the question, Chair Hassan. I
remember exactly when I said those words, and I remember that
interview very well. We had been seeing pills in New Hampshire
laced with fentanyl, but it was really the influx of the pills
laced with methamphetamine targeting children to look exactly
like an Adderall that I thought was an insidious move on behalf
of these drug cartels to target young Americans.
It is widely known that it's young people throughout our
country that appropriately use Adderall, but in some cases
unfortunately they abuse Adderall, and those pills are traded
around and passed around throughout our colleges, high schools,
and even our middle schools.
When I saw the amount of those pills that were crossing
throughout New England but particularly here in New Hampshire,
it troubled me more than anything I had seen or experienced in
my entire career. They are coming after our kids, make no
mistake about it, it's this relentless move toward widespread
addiction, and that's exactly how these cartels are trying to
achieve that, and going back to something that, Congresswoman
Kuster, that you talked about with us needing to do more in
terms of prevention, to limit the demand that is exactly what
the One Pill Can Kill campaign was designed to do.
First of all, the Administrator and all of DEA knew, we
needed to very quickly educate Americans about how deadly and
dangerous these pills are. That was the first part of that. We
needed to educate them on how easy these pills are being
manufactured to look identical to a prescription drug. The
exact same color, weight to it, marking, scoring, everything
that you can imagine, they have figured it out. Sadly, these
pills are widespread throughout all of our communities. That is
why I said at the time and it still continues to keep me up at
night. More than anything I have prided myself on the amount of
work that we have done in the prevention world here in New
Hampshire trying to connect to those young people, and that's
why we did that Virtual Summit at the time, and I wish it could
have been in person. That is why in 2017 we had the nation's
first ever Youth Opioid Summit right here in Manchester, New
Hampshire. We need to continue to message across all
communities just how deadly and pervasive those drugs are. We
can't stop.
One thing I'm very proud of in the work that I have been
doing recently is I am seeing across the entire nation where
communities are still talking about One Pill Can Kill, and how
we are linking those back to social media companies, to the
internet, but also toward local manufacturing and distribution.
Americans need to be aware that this is a problem. There are a
lot of people who sadly think they are immune from this crisis
simply because they are not injecting themselves with fentanyl.
That is what they attribute that sort of addiction to. They
need to know it is in the form of pills, and now more than ever
it's being laced into other drugs that we have seen such as
cocaine.
Senator Hassan. All right. Thank you. I am going to ask one
another question, check in with my colleagues, and then give
you each a couple of minutes at the end.
The other question I had was to Special Agent Millhollin
and Special Agent DeLena about field testing for narcotics in
particular, and our other witnesses are also welcome to chime
in here. The evolution of the types of drugs being smuggled
into New Hampshire communities as well as their purity exposes
Task Force personnel to ever increasing risk. Obviously to
Border Protection, too, but I want to drill down a little bit
on the Task Force issue.
Field testing equipment can help law enforcement personnel
quickly identify dangerous drugs so that they can respond
appropriately. However, while Task Force personnel generally
have access to field testing equipment used to identify
dangerous drugs, Task Force personnel may not have this
equipment readily available for all operations. How would
universal access to field testing equipment improve operational
efficiency and effectiveness for your Task Forces. Are there
other tools that your Task Forces need which Congress could
provide resources for. Start with you, Special Agent.
Mr. Millhollin. Thank you for that question. I mentioned
earlier Border Enforcement Task Forces have about 2000
different State and local officers assigned to them. Generally
when they seize narcotics, those are processed through either a
CBP or a DEA lab. As you can imagine there's back loads in
those labs and multiple agencies, not only Federal but State
and local that use those labs. Turnaround times can get pretty
long.
With the rise in fentanyl and opioids, obviously having
field testing equipment on hand to be able to test those
narcotics is not only beneficial for the investigation but for
officer safety so we know immediately what we have in our
hands. We started trying to equip some of those 80 Border
Enforcement Task Forces with mobile device testing. Those come
at about $20,000 per item. We have 10 of our best teams that
have those now, but we would like to expand those to our other
80. I was told there wouldn't be any math questions. I think
that's maybe 1.5 million or so dollars so any help that comes
would be great.
Mr. DeLena. Madam Chair, thank you for the question, and,
while I agree it is so important to get those type of devices
into the hands of the men and women of law enforcement who are
encountering these drugs on the street every day, we also to
have keep in mind how rapidly evolving those drugs are, and
having worked here in New Hampshire now and actually thinking
back to the last Field Hearing on Drugs was about 6 years and 6
months almost to the day that was hosted here in New Hampshire,
and I think how much has changed just in that amount of time.
It really has. These drugs continue to evolve.
We also need to make sure that the technology evolves along
with it so that if we do invest in these type of devices, and
we have invested in many, they don't become a paperweight
because the drugs quickly evolve and it's not something that
that certain device can test.
I also want to mention that it was Senator Shaheen who
pushed so hard for funding for the Drug Enforcement
Administration to create a new lab which is coming here to New
Hampshire which I think will be a game changer for us to be
able to have that proximity of a lab to quickly get substances
tested for all of our State, local, and Federal partners.
Because especially there are investigations where we need a
timely answer. That successful prosecution can quickly be met.
I think that's a great step for us, and we look forward to the
opening of that lab in the future.
Senator Hassan. Great. Commander.
Ms. Arcieri. Presently, each team has a Trunarc analyzer
which we have used quite frequently. My recommendation would be
for the smaller agencies that don't have the funding to have
access to those analyzers. We certainly when we get the call we
go and we do what we need to do, and most recently we did that
in a case in Lebanon, New Hampshire, where the police
department up there seized some Adderall, it appeared to be
Adderall, and it was tested and in fact it was fentanyl.
We provided that service to that community. However, there
are a lot of other communities that can probably use that
Trunarc themselves.
Senator Hassan. Thank you very much.
Before I turn to the panel of witnesses final
recommendations, do either of my colleagues have anything you
want to follow up on? All right. We will do closings in a
minute.
My final question to the witnesses is what is one
recommendation each of you want to highlight for policymakers
on how to better support law enforcement efforts to fight drug
trafficking, and you have made a lot of them so if you feel
like you have said your piece, that's fine, but please go
ahead, and we will just go right down the line starting with
you, Special Agent Millhollin.
Mr. Millhollin. I would highlight briefly, I know you have
done a lot of work to make sure this agency is fully funded in
their new inspection equipment along the south borders worse. I
think by 2026 We will be scanning most vehicles and cargo
equipment coming into the United States. With that, obviously
HSI responds to all seizures of contraband at every port of
entry. We think that we will see significant increases in the
seizures there and obviously we need additional personnel there
so I would like to bring that to your attention.
Senator Hassan. That's great. Assistant Director.
Mr. Manning. I want to thank you for your continued support
of CBP, the investment in the infrastructure in the ports of
entry on the Southern Border and also the Northern Border is
critical. We need to stay up to date and ahead of our
adversaries to continue to make these seizures and protect
these communities. Anything you can do to continue just to fund
this infrastructure would be great. Appreciate it.
Senator Hassan. Thank you. Special Agent DeLena.
Mr. DeLena. Madam Chair, thank you. I think it's important
that this type of collaboration and conversation continues.
There are a lot of other men and women in law enforcement who
can probably fill these chairs equally and tell their story
which are all equally important, but there's 104,000 Americans
dying of a drug overdose every single year. 286 a day. We need
to continue to fully fund these agencies so that we can keep up
with the ever-evolving drug cartels in terms of staffing and
equipment. Thank you.
Senator Hassan. Thank you. Commander.
Ms. Arcieri. On that note, to follow up, as I mentioned
before, with the mission of the Drug Task Force is the street
level narcotics investigations, the ones that are plaguing the
small communities that don't have their resources. On that note
is the pervasive attitude throughout New Hampshire that drug
users do not fit the description of serious drug traffickers
which is accurate. Although these individuals may not be
trafficking in major quantities of fentanyl and methamphetamine
by definition as the level we talked about here on the Federal
level, these individuals are the ones who are directly
supplying the victims of overdoses of fentanyl and heroin, many
leading to deaths.
To illustrate this point, within the last several months in
one community alone a DTF investigation yielded the arrest of
two individuals suspected of trafficking quantities of fentanyl
and heroin. By definition, they were drug misusers, if you
will. However, by one of the suspect's own admission, it was
determined that this individual had distributed approximately
182,000 bags, individual bags, of fentanyl and heroin over the
period of a year.
That's what I would like to leave the panel with today is
that's what this State is confronting right now are those users
that are addicted, and there's no question that we need to have
better rehabilitation programs without a doubt, but these
individuals are the ones that are trafficking these quantities
of drugs that are causing the opiate epidemic that we have in
this State with the number of overdoses and death resulting
from the overdoses. I would like to leave with just that
picture.
Senator Hassan. Thank you.
Ms. Arcieri. I want to thank you for taking the time to
administer this panel.
Senator Hassan. Commander, I appreciate it very much.
Major?
Mr. Ebert. I want to thank the Panel again for the
opportunity to be here today. It is truly a honor, and I
figured I would close with something that didn't cost any
money, and it was something that I said earlier that I really
want to reemphasize.
As of late there have been those in the community that have
sought to demonize law enforcement, and this has caused
tremendous ill effects through the law enforcement system.
Retention and recruitment have been hindered by it, and what I
would ask is that, Senator, you are truly the gold standard of
support for law enforcement. You were as the Governor, you
continue to be as a Senator, and what I would ask is that the
Senator's conduct and statements on law enforcement just be
echoed by your colleagues so that we can continue to recruit
good people into this profession who want to do it for the
right reason. They want to do it because it's a noble
profession. We want to break down that barrier, that stigma
that has been attached to it.
In closing, I would ask for the collective support of
Congress for a positive review of law enforcement, and where
there are issues that we need to work with, know that we are
always willing to have that conversation. Thank you again.
Senator Hassan. Thank you, Major, very much. I am now going
to turn to my colleagues for any closing remarks that they
have, and then, as promised, by 11:25 or so we will wrap up.
Mr. Kuster. Great. I will be brief. I have so many things
going through my mind right now, but just to start where you
left off, my father-in-law who is no longer with us was a
policeman, and I think he would be proud, we are all proud of
your exemplary service and the way you presented the challenges
of your profession today, and please know that all of us are
here to support you, to fund the police, to make sure you have
the resources you need for recruitment and retention and
equipment and everything we have discussed today.
The Senator mentioned your families, and I want to make
sure that I echo that as well. I will say personally I never
expected my own life to be in danger until January 6, 2021 and
it was a Capitol Hill policeman that saved my life, and I'm
very grateful for that.
This hearing today hits very close to home for many of us
and many of our colleagues, and I can just say out of 435 house
members, dozens of our colleagues have lost family members to
drug overdose death. For me, it hits very close to home. I just
spent a week with my own brother out on the West Coast who is
in surgery trying to help him through but the understanding
issue is sadly addiction, and it comes from prescribed
medication.
It is very challenging, and I appreciate everything that
you are doing, and everything that everyone in the treatment
community is doing, and I want to say that's my commitment to
it. It's as though it's your family, it is, and my family, and
it's very hard to go up against Mexican cartels and criminal
chemists in China and true evil that is profiting at the
expense of our communities. I thank you, thank your families,
we are here to support you. We are working very hard at it.
Thank you.
Senator Hassan. Congressman Pappas.
Mr. Pappas. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you again to the
Panel for your contributions today, the intellectual resources
that you are providing to us to make sure that we are
responding in a way that is appropriate, but also just for your
work day in and day out, and I know the people of New Hampshire
are so grateful for what our law enforcement community does,
and I think this panel, myself included, is very grateful for
what law enforcement does day in and day out. There's a lot
that falls under that umbrella. It's not just the core
functions or maybe what's on the job description, but it's
everything else, and just about every problem that we have in
society falls in front of our police officers and law
enforcement here in New Hampshire, and we continue to ask you
all to do more, to take greater risks, and to respond, and we
have to make sure we are backing you up with the resources and
support that you all need to do your job even more effectively,
to provide things like greater training and just greater
funding to be able to keep people in place to grow the force,
to increase professionalism and to be able to respond to
everybody that is going on out there in the community.
I have no doubt that you all are incredible, capable
partners, and I hope we can continue to spread that message as
best as possible and make sure more folks are interested in
pursuing this profession because our community, our country, is
really depending on that.
There is some good news in the appropriation bill that
passed recently. It's about a 200 million dollar increase for
Border Control in that bill, a 16 percent increase for the
technology that's being deployed at the ports of entry, full
funding for programs like the Byrne Grant and the COPS program
that I know our State and local partners are really drawing on
support from.
We have to continue to grow those numbers because we know
the threat is evolving, the threat continues to grow, and as
Congresswoman Kuster mentioned, we all measure the impact of
this drug crisis in a very personal way, and you can't put a
price tag on someone's life. You can measure it in terms of a
person who's not showing up at work anymore because they have
been lost or a friend or a family member who unfortunately has
succumbed or a grandparent who is raising a grandchild because
their parents are no longer there. That's what we see all
across New Hampshire, and we want to make sure that we are
doing all we can to support your work and support all the great
community initiatives that are creating pathways for people to
have a healthy and safe future.
Thank you for that, look forward to staying in touch, and
thank you, Senator Hassan, for convening this.
Senator Hassan. Thank you very much, Congressman Pappas. I
will add my thanks to those of my colleagues and frankly to the
people of the Granite State who I know if they were here with
us would be thanking each and every one of you for the work you
do.
I will add to Congressman Pappas and Congresswoman Kuster's
thoughts about the importance of the work you are doing and
what a difference it makes to people all across our State and
all across our country.
Relatively soon after I became a Senator, I visited with
some families who either had lost somebody to opioid addiction
or people who were in recovery, and as I was leaving this
meeting which was in a church in one of our towns, there was a
little girl I had been introduced to at the beginning of the
meeting and she was hovering around the edge. You know how
grownups always like push kids forward and say go talk to the
Senator, and she was hesitant.
I asked her to walk me out to my car, and I asked her if
there was something she wanted to talk to me about, and she
said yes, 9 years old, she said Senator I just wanted you to
know what my life is like since my favorite cousin died of an
overdose. He was 19. I was so proud of this 9-year-old little
girl for having the wherewithal to figure out a way to pull her
Senator aside to tell her that, but boy, I wish that 9 year old
had never have to have that conversation with me, and I know
all of you do, too.
With that, we are extraordinarily grateful for your
service. The urgency that you all feel, and it came right
through here today, is urgency that we need to maintain because
of the impact that these deadly drugs particularly now that
they can be manufactured with synthetics so quickly. We have to
keep at this with everything we have. You all are on the front
lines. So are the men and women that you lead, and we are very
grateful to all of you.
Thank you for your insight this morning. Your testimony
here today will help us craft better bipartisan solutions to
help Federal, State, and local law enforcement fight drug
trafficking in our communities.
The record for this hearing will remain open for 15 days
until 5 p.m. on March 29th for submissions of statements and
questions for the record, and with that this hearing is
adjourned.
[Whereupon at 11:30 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
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