Pubdate: Sun, 09 Dec 2001
Source: Sacramento Bee (CA)
Copyright: 2001 The Sacramento Bee
Contact:  http://www.sacbee.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/376
Author: Michael Doyle, Bee Washington Bureau

WAR ON DRUGS SUFFERS A BLOW

Some FBI Agents Are Needed Instead In The Terrorism Fight.

WASHINGTON -- The shooting war on terrorism has drained some street-level 
agents from the Central Valley's anti-methamphetamine campaign.

As part of a larger redeployment, the FBI has removed its six Central 
Valley special agents from a collaborative anti-meth effort.

But with its remaining complement of award-winning agents and officers, the 
Central Valley High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program is pressing on.

"You can't argue with it, but it does create some problems for us," Bill 
Ruzzamenti, director of the Fresno-based anti-meth campaign, said of the 
FBI reassignments.

Ruzzamenti oversees the Central Valley HIDTA, which links state, local and 
federal officers in a nine-county region from Sacramento to Bakersfield. 
The program currently receives $2.5 million in federal funds, which 
Ruzzamenti hopes to increase by $1 million.

Some of Ruzzamenti's colleagues, who joined him in Washington last week to 
pick up awards at a national drug fighters' conference, say the federal 
help is crucial.

"Because of our financial situation, we have equipment we never had before, 
and it really makes a difference," said Robert Pennal, a state Bureau of 
Narcotic Enforcement supervisor who runs a Fresno-based task force.

Digital cameras, thermal imagery equipment, cameras that can pick up 
undercover action from a quarter of a mile away or more: It's a far cry, 
Pennal said, from his first undercover assignment that's now become a 
funny, self-mocking story in his repertoire.

Pennal, 45, a Merced native, joined the Merced County Sheriff's Department 
in his early 20s. He looked young, so he ended up being assigned to buy 
drugs undercover. His first assignment was to buy pills from a nurse's aide 
at a convalescent hospital.

"You would have thought I was taking down the Colombian drug cartel," 
Pennal said.

Back in the day, the problem was black beauties -- amphetamine pills. Even 
the name makes Pennal smile. Now, Pennal and his task force are targeting 
the deadlier methamphetamine manufacturers who have made the Central Valley 
the nation's leading producing area. An estimated 75 percent of all meth in 
the United States is produced in California, a point Ruzzamenti drove home 
at a conference session with a map showing links between the Valley and 
drug operations elsewhere in the country.

"It was mass of red lines everywhere," Ruzzamenti said.

Ruzzamenti's request for an additional $1 million from Washington won't be 
ruled on for a while. Pennal, though, is taking home from the conference 
both a mess of business cards and an eagle statue honoring his task force.

Now approaching its second year in operation as part of the HIDTA, the 
Fresno Methamphetamine Task Force includes 16 agents and officers from 
eight different agencies. It's racked up good numbers -- 180 arrests, 81 
meth labs dismantled, hundreds of pounds of meth seized -- that helped it 
win a national award for "outstanding cooperative effort."

Bryan Markum, the 33-year-old supervisor of the Stanislaus-San 
Joaquin-Merced Methamphetamine Task Force, is bringing home an eagle statue 
for "outstanding interdiction effort." A Stanislaus County sheriff's deputy 
who's bulked up some since his days as a quarter-miler at Ceres High 
School, Markum oversees seven agents.

In part, the award recognizes a September 2000 operation in which Markum 
and his men tracked a heroin trafficker from Modesto to Southern 
California. For three days running, sometimes at freeway speeds of more 
than 100 mph, the agents followed the suspect on his rounds. Many fast food 
hamburgers were consumed.

The bust took brain power. The agents didn't actually see where the heroin 
was being stashed, but they noticed something odd: that the suspect needed 
to refuel his car after only about 30 minutes. The inference: that the gas 
tank held a lot less gas because it was also holding drugs. The upshot: 22 
pounds of black tar heroin were found in the car; an additional 20 pounds 
of heroin were found back at the house.

"We were fortunate," Markum said, "to develop this (case) very rapidly."
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