Beltrami County law enforcement draws federal aid to fight drug trafficking
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Late last year, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy added Beltrami to the list of eight other Minnesota counties designated as a high intensity drug trafficking area, or HIDTA. Most of the others are in the Twin Cities region.
Congress created the program in 1988 as part of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act. Area law enforcement, including the Beltrami County Sheriff’s Office, Paul Bunyan Drug Task Force, Bemidji Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Headwaters Safe Trails Task Force, worked together to obtain the designation.
Now, law enforcement in Beltrami is planning how it will use the federal money to curb the flow of illegal drugs into one of the poorest areas in the state.
Huddled around a conference table on the second floor of the law enforcement center in Bemidji, David Hart, the Paul Bunyan Drug Task Force commander and Beltrami County Sheriff’s Captain Joe Kleszyk, said with HIDTA, their goal is to bring federal, state, local and tribal agencies together to combat drug trafficking throughout the county.
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And they’ll do it by strengthening existing channels of communication between agencies while expanding new ones. Hart’s agency currently covers about 10,000 square miles, including some areas in neighboring counties.
“We’re going to use the money to target traffickers,” he said. “And the individuals responsible for bringing controlled substances to the area for distribution.”
But it won’t be easy. None of the $95,000 granted by the designation can go toward replacing existing funds already in place or to create new positions. Hart said initially they will invest some of the funds into new cutting-edge equipment.
Kleszyk said in recent years there has been a staggering increase in methamphetamine and opioid seizures. Taken together, law enforcement has confiscated over $5.5 million worth of the drugs since 2018.
Along with other disconcerting statistics, Kleszyk said the county’s overdose rate is also more than double state and national averages.
“I’ve had several people call or stop in and say those numbers seem fake to me,” he said. “The reality is those numbers are absolutely true, and it’s sad that they’re so true.”
To be eligible for the designation in their 25-page petition they had to answer four questions.
“Does your area have a significant drug problem? Are there resources being committed to tackle that drug problem locally? Does the drug problem have significant impact to the community,” Kleszyk said. “And would an increase in allocation of federal resources be beneficial to remedy that problem?”
Kleszyk said fentanyl’s popularity in the area came after the crackdown on prescription pill mills which saw black market opioid prices skyrocket. That in turn led to a resurgence of heroin because at that point, it was a cheaper alternative and it was easier to obtain. Within a couple of years, they began seeing an increase in overdoses as heroin started getting cut with fentanyl.
As people began building up their tolerances, Kleszyk said drug users shifted to only wanting fentanyl, which is 50 times stronger than heroin.
Around the time heroin began gaining popularity, Kleszyk said a Michigan man named Omar Beasley began trafficking drugs into the area and surrounding reservations. In 2017, Beasley was sentenced in federal court to 25 years. Forty-one others were also charged. But the damage had been done.
“He set the stage for continued traffickers to come here,” Kleszyk said.
Today, through their investigations, Hart and Kleszyk have traced the flow of narcotics back to Mexican drug cartels at the southwestern border. And Hart said they often use familiar methods for moving their illegal wares.
“FedEx, UPS, USPS,” he said. “There’s a lot of things that get mailed through the mail system.”
As a result, Hart said HIDTA planners would like to see a postal inspector brought into the area and maybe even a new postal inspection station.
Beltrami County Attorney David Hanson gives a simple reason as to why the area is a bustling drug hub.
“We have a large customer base for drug traffickers,” Hanson said. “And we have less resources to combat the illegal activity.”
He added most illegal drugs in Beltrami County come from the Twin Cities. And he said most of the cases he prosecutes involve illegal narcotics.
“I would say upwards of 95 percent, you know,” Hanson said. “Maybe 99 percent.”
Hanson estimated about 5 to 10 percent of his caseload has involved trafficking. But only about 1 percent where he’s prosecuted the head of a trafficking organization. Overall, he said his office already has one of the highest case per attorney ratios in the state.
If HIDTA leads to more arrests, can the current infrastructure support it?
“We'll make it work,” he answered. “If we can get more drug dealers off the street, there will be trickle down effects in less cases over time. That’s not going to be something you see overnight.”
Whatever happens Hanson’s office or the federal government oversees criminal cases tied to non-Native Americans originating on Red Lake. Crimes committed there by Native Americans regardless of tribe are handled through tribal courts or the U.S. Attorney’s Office. However, Hanson does have jurisdiction over felonies committed on the Leech Lake Reservation regardless of race.
Amy Bowles, Beltrami County public health director, welcomes the HIDTA designation. She said the number one indicator for the health of a community is the infant mortality rate per 100,000 people. Statewide it’s 40, but for Beltrami county it’s 70.
“When they got up and they were sharing about HIDTA, and they were talking about the funding that was coming in,” she said. “I couldn’t help but think how this funding is hopefully going to impact that data.”
During COVID when the borders were closed, Hart said they saw a dramatic decrease in the availability of narcotics as well as overdoses. With President Donald Trump declaring he will designate Mexican drug cartels as terrorist groups along with increased security measures at the southern border, Hart said he is interested in how this might affect drug trafficking in Beltrami County.