Pubdate: Thu, 30 Dec 1999 Source: Daily Herald (IL) Copyright: 1999 The Daily Herald Company Contact: http://www.dailyherald.com/ Author: Susan Stevens DUPAGE CAR OWNERS NOTIFIED IF VEHICLES USED IN DRUG DEALS In their battle against the drug trade, DuPage County narcotics investigators this year took a new tactic: tattling. Over several months this summer and fall, officers with the DuPage County Metropolitan Enforcement Group took down the license plate numbers of suburbanites who drove to a Chicago neighborhood to buy heroin. Then each of the registered owners received a letter, notifying them their vehicle had been used in a West Side drug deal. "A lot of them were really thankful we wrote them letters," DuMEG director Mark Henry said. DuMEG worked with Chicago police, who accompanied the DuPage officers on trips in July and August to a West Side neighborhood where police learned suburban residents often go to buy drugs. Police recorded the license plates of more than 30 DuPage County vehicles involved in suspected drug deals. In September and October, Chicago police posed as heroin dealers and conducted reverse stings in the neighborhood, bordered by the Eisenhower Expressway, Roosevelt Road, Cicero Avenue and Independence Boulevard. Roughly 40 DuPage residents, mostly adults, were arrested, Henry said. In all, DuMEG mailed 70 letters to car owners in nearly every town in DuPage County, Henry said. Some went to parents, who called police to ask for a description of the driver to determine which of their children was involved. Others learned a friend who borrowed their car had lied to them. The investigation was spurred by a rise in heroin use in the county in 1998, the year two youths died of heroin overdoses in Naperville and Lisle. DuPage Sheriff John Zaruba and Naperville Chief David Dial, chairman of DuMEG, pushed for the operation. "We know we have had some heroin coming into our county, and Naperville certainly is not immune," Dial said Wednesday. "We think the more the public knows about the problem, the better able they'll be to cope with the situation at their homes." The operation is ongoing, Henry said. - --- MAP posted-by: Doc-Hawk