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By Joel Stottrup
 Drug investigation units are alive and well in the greater Princeton area, in talking with authorities in four counties.
Princeton is at the crossroads of those four counties – Mille Lacs, Sherburne, Isanti and Benton. All have drug task forces except for Isanti. The Isanti County Sheriff’s Department has an investigator, Chris Janssen, who also handles drug cases.
But even in talking with Isanti County Sheriff Russ Monson and Janssen last week, the complexion of methamphetamine cases has changed within the past few years.
Illegal drugs and money the Sherburne County Gang and Drug Task Force confiscated as part of its undercover investigative work.
Sheriff Monson and other investigators talked to for this story, note that the law enacted several years ago regarding over-the-counter Sudafed gel capsule purchases has made a difference. Meth manufacturers had been going from store to store in the past purchasing quantities of those gel caps until they had enough for making a batch of meth. The law change made it so buyers of the capsules have to register their name with the pharmacist clerks and thus have their identity recorded for law enforcement to check.
Authorities talked to say the Sudafed law was a very big factor in the great decline of meth labs in the past few years. However, the meth use is probably as strong as ever, just that the users are going to new sources, authorities say.
One development, said Isanti Sheriff Monson, has been the increased exporting of meth from labs in Mexico up into the United States. “Bike gangs and Mexican mafia” are bringing the meth in and it is therefore more costly, said Monson last week.
As a result, Monson continued, there have been a lot of vacant, foreclosed homes burglarized and the copper in them stolen to sell in order to buy meth. The price for meth from the meth importers is much higher and so the pressure to steal to get the money, Monson said.
Because the relationship has been found between these kinds of break-ins and thefts and drug purchases, Monson said, his property crimes investigator, Rob Bowker, now works closely with drug investigator Janssen to exchange case information.
And even though Isanti County doesn’t have a drug task force, Isanti investigator Janssen says he works with various task forces in information exchange.
Janssen also observed that cases trend up and down, explaining that the number of metal thefts seem to rise and fall with the going price of scrap metal.
Mille Lacs County
Mille Lacs County is part of the North Central Drug Task Force. That consists of the counties of Mille Lacs and Kanabec and Mille Lacs Tribal Police.
Each jurisdiction has assigned an undercover agent, said Mille Lacs County Sheriff Brent Lindgren, to gather intelligence on all drug and gang activity.
The task force conducted 301 investigations and made 372 drug arrests and charged 379 people with drug and/or gang offenses during 2006-09.
The task force also has a prevention component, giving 83 drug-prevention presentations in the same period. Total attendance at the presentations was 6,043.
Benton County
Benton County is part of the Central Minnesota Drug and Gang Task Force. The partners in that are the sheriff’s departments in Benton, Stearns, Todd and Morrison counties and the St. Cloud Police Department.
The Sherburne unit
Sgt. Chad Johnson, of the Sherburne County Sheriff’s Department, talked about the work of the Sherburne County Drug and Gang Unit that he and four other investigators in the department make up.
Sherburne had been with the Central Minnesota Drug and Gang Task Force for about 10 years until dropping out about five years ago.
The reason for just having a county drug and gang task force, Johnson explained, was to provide “more focus” to include investigation of smaller cases that might otherwise get overlooked.
Johnson indicated that the Sherburne task force has been busy. It opened 182 cases in 2008 and 201 in 2009 and arrested 132 in ‘08 and 169 in ‘09.
“Some are warrant arrests and we also handle vice work,” Johnson noted.
Prostitution is in the vice category, he explained, discussing a recent case in which the boyfriend of a prostitute in Sherburne had threatened an officer via Craigslist. It involved a photo of the suspect holding a gun and making a threat to the officer, Johnson explained. The suspect was convicted and sentenced for the terroristic threat.
Vice also includes investigating gambling complaints. His unit investigated one such case not long ago but determined it was unfounded. The unit also tracks sexual predators, verifying addresses and determining if any predators are where they are not supposed to be. The unit arrested two people in that situation last year, Johnson said.
Copper theft in Sherburne
Sherburne, like Isanti County, has had its share of copper thefts, Johnson noted. He spoke of copper wire stolen from a cell phone relay station south of Zimmerman in 2007 and the suspects apprehended.
But along with the meth and marijuana cases, the Sherburne unit also does undercover investigations of prescription drugs such as OxyContin, Vicodyn, Hydrocodone and Percocet. It carries the same offense as does meth, said Johnson, who noted prescription drug abuse has risen.
Trends change, Johnson said, echoing the drug investigator in Isanti County, Johnson mentioned that there had been two separate cases of heroin that his unit worked on, indicating they were in the Elk River area.
Heroin use has been reported on the rise lately in metro areas like Hennepin, Anoka and Ramsey counties. But not much has been seen yet in the Princeton area or into northern Mille Lacs, or in Isanti, the authorities said who were talked to for this story.
The big three drugs that the Sherburne investigators encounter on a daily basis, Johnson said, are marijuana, OxyContin and meth.
Like the unit Mille Lacs is part of, the Sherburne task force gives a lot of drug-prevention talks in schools in Zimmerman and Elk River, according to Johnson.
Is there much gang activity in Sherburne?
“Some of it, which is documented,” Johnson answered. “But more so we deal with the association with gangs.”
The department, he said, arrested a couple of confirmed motorcycle gang members.
And about a month ago, Johnson said, his unit “tripped over” a Hispanic drug operation in Big Lake, in which 10,000 tablets of the drug ecstasy, a pound of meth and four pounds of marijuana were found.
But trying to get information on the gang structure isn’t easy, Johnson said. “They don’t make points with their organization talking honestly with the cops,” Johnson explained. “I truly believe we are dealing with more gang members than we can document.”
The job of drug investigation
“Fabulous,” is how Johnson describes his job. He says he likes the variety and says that “most of the time we’re truly dealing with bad guys. We’re not giving speeding tickets.”
Johnson, in talking about some of the cases handled by his unit, noted that confiscation of property had helped fund the unit’s work. Three cars that were seized in drug arrests are now used by the drug investigators, he said.
In one case last year, $10,000, plus some controlled substance was found in a vehicle’s hidden compartment. Such money goes into a special fund that is used either for enforcement or for what is called buy-money, he said. That is money the undercover agents use to purchase drugs to build a case against the seller.
One of the facets of undercover work, Johnson said, is deciding when to stop the drug purchasing in a case and start making arrests. The longer the buying continues, the more trust can build and the suspect may reveal information about the higher-ups in the drug operation, said Johnson.
“Sometimes the best way is one purchase and then arrest, and other times it is three purchases,” he said. “The intriguing thing is figuring out how to stay ahead of the guys... Our unit uses more confidential informants than any other unit and we can use informants for other types of cases.”
Johnson talked about feeling achievement in the job.
“You truly believe you are making a difference, even for a short period of time,” he said. “Even by disrupting small drug dealers, you’re putting a little kink in [the drug pipeline]. It makes it (drugs) a little more difficult to obtain and keeps it off the streets for a short time.”
Is it easy to find drugs in Princeton?
“I don’t think Princeton is any worse than anywhere else,” Johnson said. “You’re always going to have that element of society.”
“Drugs,” Johnson continued, “are bad, not just the effect on the body, but what we run into, what we associate with the whole package. It’s not just their getting intoxicated, but it [the drug dealing] is driving thefts. Sometimes it’s the associated behavior.”
A lot of the drug problem comes from the addiction, Johnson said, calling it a “vicious cycle.” The addict uses drugs to get high, he explained, and then after coming down feels bad and looks to the drug again for help.
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