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Crime & Safety

Undercover Drug Ops Require Cops' Patience

A behind-the-scenes look at Operation Clean Sweep, by the veteran Napa police reporter who rode along May 3 when local authorities began a series of drug arrests after an undercover investigation that began in 2011. In all, 19 people were arrested.

 

Undercover police work can be tedious and boring, but patience is a must.

I learned that after being invited by the to ride along with undercover drug agents as they set up drug buys with an informant and local methamphetamine dealers.

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Dubbed , the NSIB investigation started in mid-December 2011 and came to fruition May 3, netting 19 arrests on suspicion of drug and other felony offenses.

I was there for the massive arrest and warrant searches that rousted the “small” Napa drug dealers from their beds to be hauled off in a paddy wagon to the county jail.

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But before May 3, I also got to ride along with NSIB agents on some less exciting missions, as they videotaped drug transactions between their informant and the dealers.

"Dealers will sell to anyone, even teens"

The goal of Operation Clean Sweep was to arrest the street-level peddlers, who sell drugs to support their own drug habit, according to NSIB Sgt. Oscar Ortiz.

“A good majority of these street level drug dealers are addicts themselves. They get busted for drugs and claim they are just users to avoid going to jail for a longer time if they were prosecuted for selling drugs,” Ortiz said.

“The dealers will sell to anyone, even teens, to support their drug habit. Also many of them have also been convicted of other crimes such as burglary, robbery, grand theft and fraud. It takes money to support their addiction, and they will get it any way they can.”

The undercover agenda seemed simple enough — have the informant set up a time and place for a buy, videotape the transaction, identify the drug seller, and move on to the next undercover drug deal.

The first drug deal I witnessed as a "ride along" with NSIB went down in the parking lot of a chain store in central Napa.

The informant, wearing a hidden camera and a "wire" that transmitted his conversations to NSIB, met the seller in front of the store.

The drug sale was videotaped and recorded and the dealer left in his car en route to his home.

Discreetly, we followed him.

Tailing a dealer is also carefully executed. One undercover drug agent follows the dealer a few miles, then backs off and another undercover vehicle takes over. And so on, until the dealer parks his car in his driveway. He is ID'd, and the mission accomplished.

Some days are better than others

I soon found out drug dealers are not very good at showing up when expected to make a sale: The second ride along was a bust, the drug dealer a no-show.

We waited for close to 45 minutes in a Napa shopping center parking lot for the dealer. The informant tried calling the seller on his cell, but no luck. After about an hour, things did not look promising, so the we packed up and left.

The next ride-along proved to be a success.

The informant met the drug seller at his apartment on the west side of Napa, where the drug agent and I parked our unmarked car in the apartment’s carport.

Although we were not able to see the deal, we could hear the sale go down through the wire the informant was wearing.

There was some small talk, and eventually the dealer sold the drugs to the informant and money was counted out to the dealer.

During the sale, we heard a woman in the apartment say, “you don’t tell anyone where you got that (drugs), OK?”

More undercover drug deals went down, which I didn’t witness.

Informant agrees to testify

The informant is not armed, but is in constant communication with the NSIB agents, who Ortiz said do their best to make sure he is safe at all times. Should something go wrong, they are prepared to step in within seconds to protect the informant, Ortiz said.

The informant, whose name has not been disclosed, agrees to testify at the court proceedings once the alleged drug dealers are arrested.

The sales are small, about a gram of meth. The informant is given about $100 to make the purchase.

“We can’t make any promises to the informant in exchange for working with us in the undercover operation,” Ortiz said. “That is something the district attorney decides.”

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