Source: US FBI
Today, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) announce a new regional Homeland Security Task Force (HSTF) dedicated to identifying and prosecuting transnational organizations and individuals engaged in violations of federal law.
The objective of the task force will be to end the presence of criminal cartels, foreign gangs, and transnational criminal organizations operating in America’s heartland through a collaborative and comprehensive response to the growing threat to public safety and national security. The HSTF will integrate personnel from federal agencies to combat crime in our communities. Personnel will include law enforcement agents, intelligence analysts and professional staff.
“This new HSTF model puts all agencies in the same room with one focus: crushing the presence of criminal organizations in our communities. Through interagency collaboration and surging resources to this task force, the FBI and HSI are making clear it’s priority: protect the homeland and ensure the safety and security of our community from violent criminals,” said FBI Kansas City Special Agent in Charge Stephen A. Cyrus.
The HSTF will focus on violations including, but not limited to, drug trafficking, money laundering, weapons trafficking, human trafficking, alien smuggling, homicide, extortion, kidnapping, and other transnational organized crime-related violations that may be of federal investigative interest. Additionally, the HSTF will work with state and local partners to identify violent criminal organizations and actors.
“HSI is fully committed to identifying and eliminating the criminal organizations that embed themselves in our communities. This task force is a show of strength—coordinated, relentless, and unapologetic in its pursuit of justice,” said ICE Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent in Charge Mark Zito. “Alongside our federal, state, and local partners, we will expose violent offenders, shut down transnational operations, and enforce immigration and customs laws of the United States with precision and purpose. Criminal enterprises operating in this region should take heed—we will find you, and we will arrest you, and we will prosecute you.”
Through a unified framework, the HSTF will serve as a model for protecting the homeland from evolving threats presented by transnational organized crime.
The Kansas City HSTF region will encompass Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, and Missouri. Each state will have a location dedicated to facilitating the HSTF, to include Kansas City (location for all of Missouri), Wichita (Kansas), Des Moines (Iowa), and Omaha (Nebraska). Each location will combine federal resources and personnel to work these violations. The regional HSTF will be co-led by the special agents in charge of HSI and FBI. There will also be a regional executive committee comprised of HSTF partner agencies within the region.
Partner agencies will include the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA); the Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Agency (ATF); the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS); the Internal Revenue Service – Criminal Investigation (IRS-CI); the U.S. Attorney’s Offices for the District of Nebraska; the District of Kansas; the Northern District of Iowa; the Southern District of Iowa; the Western District of Missouri; the Eastern District of Missouri; and other federal, state, and local agencies that look to support the task force.
This Kansas City Regional HSTF has been established as a regional task force to the national Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security’s Homeland Security Task Force Model, established by the White House in President Donald J. Trump’s Executive Order 14159, “Protecting the American People Against Invasion.” In that order, it is directed that HSTFs, “…end the presence of criminal cartels, foreign gangs, and transnational criminal organizations throughout the United States, dismantle cross-border human smuggling and trafficking networks, end the scourge of human smuggling and trafficking, with a particular focus on such offenses involving children, and ensure the use of all available law enforcement tools to faithfully execute the immigration laws of the United States.”