Strategic Drug Threat Developments

National Drug Intelligence Center
Lake County High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Drug Market Analysis
April 2007

Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) based in Lake County, Indiana, and neighboring Chicago, Illinois, control the transportation and wholesale distribution of illicit drugs in the Lake County HIDTA region; they also are increasingly using the area as a transshipment center for drugs that they supply to markets in the Great Lakes, Mid-Atlantic, Northeast, and Southeast Regions of the United States.
Street gang members dominate retail drug distribution, particularly crack cocaine, in Lake County and are largely responsible for the high level of drug-related crime that occurs in metropolitan areas of the HIDTA region. Gang- and drug-related criminal activity is spreading from traditional high-crime urban areas in the state, such as Gary, Hammond, and East Chicago, into surrounding suburban communities in Lake County and neighboring Porter County.
Gang members based in Lake County also contribute to violent crime in other cities, including Chicago; Detroit, Michigan; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin, by supplying firearms to their criminal associates in those cities. Lake County gang members obtain firearms in Indiana, where gun control laws are less stringent than those in surrounding states. According to law enforcement officials, Indiana is one of the largest out-of-state sources of illegal firearms seized in Chicago.
Heroin abuse has increased among Caucasian adolescents from affluent suburban areas of southern Lake County. They typically drive to southeastern Chicago to obtain the drug, transport it back to Lake County, and abuse it in their home communities.
The Indiana Methamphetamine Protection Act, enacted in July 2005, has stopped many small-scale powder methamphetamine producers in rural counties in Indiana, central Illinois, and northern Kentucky from traveling to metropolitan areas of Lake County to acquire methamphetamine precursor chemicals from retail establishments, a practice that routinely occurred prior to enactment of this legislation.

Drug Trafficking Organizations, Criminal Groups, and Gangs

Drug trafficking organizations are complex organizations with highly defined command-and-control structures that produce, transport, and/or distribute large quantities of one or more illicit drugs.

Criminal groups operating in the United States are numerous and range from small to moderately sized, loosely knit groups that distribute one or more drugs at the retail and midlevels.

Gangs are defined by the National Alliance of Gang Investigators' Associations as groups or associations of three or more persons with a common identifying sign, symbol, or name, the members of which individually or collectively engage in criminal activity that creates an atmosphere of fear and intimidation.

To Top To Contents

HIDTA Overview

The Lake County HIDTA region is strategically located in northwestern Indiana adjacent to the Chicago metropolitan area. As such, Lake County is a significant transit and storage area for illicit drugs supplied from Chicago to many eastern markets. Lake County has a diverse demographic and socioeconomic composition. The northern tier of the county includes the cities of Gary, Hammond, and East Chicago, in which over 40 percent of the county's population resides. These cities have high crime rates, low median household incomes, and declining urban environments. The southern half of the county contains rural communities and more affluent cities, such as Crown Point and Lowell, which typically have low crime rates, high median household incomes, and expanding commercial and residential development.

Several major highways (Interstates 80/94, 90, and 65) intersect in Lake County and handle over 1 million commercial and passenger vehicles per week. Mexican DTOs use these heavily traveled roadways to transport large shipments of cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamine from Mexico into and through the region en route to drug markets in the Great Lakes, Mid-Atlantic, Northeast, and Southeast Regions of the United States.

High levels of drug distribution, abuse, and related crime plague metropolitan areas in the HIDTA region, particularly Gary, Hammond, and East Chicago. Street gang members control most retail drug distribution in the region and are responsible for much of the violent crime that is committed in Lake County. Street gang members based in Lake County also contribute to violent crime in other cities, including Chicago, Detroit, and Milwaukee, by supplying firearms to their criminal associates in those cities.

To Top To Contents To Next Page

To Publications Page To Home Page