U.S. Attorney Attends OCDETF Conference in Kansas City

KANSAS CITY, MO – United States Attorney Ron Parsons attended the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF) West Central Regional Conference in Kansas City, Missouri, on August 7-8, 2018.  Also in attendance was Assistant U.S. Attorney and Deputy Criminal Chief John E. Haak, who is the OCDETF Coordinator for the District of South Dakota.

The OCDETF Program was established in 1982 to mount a comprehensive attack against organized drug traffickers.  Today, the OCDETF Program is the centerpiece of the U.S. Attorney General's drug strategy to reduce the availability of drugs by disrupting and dismantling major drug trafficking organizations and money laundering organizations and related criminal enterprises.

The Program operates nationwide and combines the resources and unique expertise of numerous federal agencies in a coordinated attack against major drug trafficking and money laundering organizations.  The OCDETF strategy, under the direction of the Deputy Attorney General, aims to focus federal drug resources on reducing the flow of illicit drugs and drug proceeds by identifying and targeting the major trafficking organizations, eliminating the financial infrastructure of drug organizations by emphasizing financial investigations and asset forfeiture, redirecting federal drug enforcement resources to align them with existing and emerging drug threats, and conducting expanded, nationwide investigations against all the related parts of the targeted organizations.