35 Arrested During Bartlesville Drug Sweep

Thursday, January 25th 2007, 4:28 pm

By: News On 6

A high-level, high security narcotics investigation and bust in Bartlesville netted 35 arrests and only News on 6 crime reporter Lori Fullbright was given access to the operation.

The Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics has a new, innovative way to fight crime. It's called a mobile operations team. These highly trained, fast moving agents go into communities, find the drug cells, buy drugs and get out.

In this first operation, they developed 46 suspects in just 11 days. Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics agents, the District 11 Drug Task Force, Bartlesville Police and Nowata and Washington County Sheriffâ€™s deputies spent Thursday working together to serve dozens of arrests warrants. The suspects were accused of selling drugs to undercover agents.

Thursday's arrests were possible thanks to some fresh faces. Dope dealers often get to know the faces of local undercover officers and confidential informants can often be unreliable. This new approach used highly covert, veteran state agents who swooped into several communities, infiltrated the drug cells and made the buys.

OBN agent David Hale explains. â€œThis mobile operations team is comprised of agents from all over the state. We bring them in one group and they hit it hard and heavy so nobody knows who they are."

The idea is to send a ripple effect through the drug dealing community, since they'll never know if the person handing them money is a real customer or a state agent. They hope it has a paralyzing effect and consequently disrupts the street level drug dealing. "I guess my warning to people selling drugs is they'll never know who they're buying from. If they're afraid, they better be very afraid," says David Hale.

Any community that needs help only has to ask and the OBN mobile operation team will gear up. Bartlesville did and now crack cocaine, marijuana and illegal prescription drugs are off the streets and dozens of people were headed to jail on felony drug distribution charges.

As soon as the teams started making the arrests Thursday, the word spread fast among the drug dealers. Some suspects actually called the officers and said, 'I know you're going to be looking for me, this is where I am, come get me and take me to jail.' That's what officers and agents call a successful operation.