Southwest Border HIDTA - New Mexico
High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas Program
January 14, 2016
Region VII Executive Board Members
(Past and Present)
Dear Members,
On December 2, 2015, my office conducted an internal, onsite review of the Region VII Border Drug Task Force (BDTF) Initiative following the sudden departure of the Mr. Tony Singleton, the initiative commander. The review revealed several weaknesses in internal controls as it relates to the collection, preservation, and storage of criminal evidence by task force personnel. Some of the issues identified are noted below:
1. A lack of supporting documentation for certain expenditures related to the purchase of evidence/information (PET!) that includes missing offense incident reports and/or chain of custody forms. In several cases, offense/incident reports had not been written for drug seizures dating back to January 2015.
2. A lack of policies or procedures related to the handling of evidentiary items. As a result, the initial handling of evidence is inconsistent amongst task force officers. In some cases packaged evidentiary items are not labeled, not sealed, and/or chain of custody forms not completed. In many other cases, chain of custody forms are incomplete and signatures missing.
3. A lack of policies or procedures related to the temporary and long-term storage of evidentiary items. In certain cases, drug evidence is temporarily stored for months in task force officer's desks. In other cases, evidentiary items are stored in an evidence facility operated by the task force, but the items are not logged into the evidence facility; as a result, there is no up-to-date listing of what evidence is currently stored and/or has been stored in that facility.
This resulted in the temporary suspension of PE/PI expenditures for the initiative. In addition, concerns were raised involving the number of hours worked and reimbursed by NM HIDTA for a certain member of the task force. An audit was requested of that task force member's time and attendance logs from the parent agency. A report on that audit should be forthcoming.
Intelligence-driven drug enforcement coordination
The Region VII BDTF Initiative was requested to submit a corrective action plan as soon as possible. The corrective action plan should include an action plan outlining the corrective measures to be implemented, deadlines, tracking progress and defining preventive measures to prevent these problems from occurring again. It is imperative that the Region VII BDTF work diligently on implementing its corrective measures. The lack of timely progress can have a negative impact on other funding line items to include the suspension of all its HIDTA grant funding.
Lastly, given the findings of our onsite reviews, the New Mexico HIDTA is providing each participating agency with a copy of those findings so that each participating agency can conduct a performance and administrative review of its personnel assigned to the task force, past or present, to determine if any impropriety may have occurred and corrective actions, if applicable, to be applied in accordance with the SOPs relative to each agency.
Thank you for your prompt attention into this matter. Should you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact my office.
Sincerely,
Mark Payne
Regional Regional Director
cc: Grant County Sheriff
Luna County Sheriff
Hidalgo County Sheriff
Deming PD Chief
Silver City PD Chief
Lordsburg PD Chief
New Mexico State Police Chief
6th Judicial DA's Office
On February 1, 2016, the audit of the Region VII Border Drug Task Force vault was initiated at 8:30 am. The audit team convened on this date and consisted of personnel from multiple agencies. The agencies and personnel represented are as follows:
. Stella Carabajal G