Efforts to track down drug traffickers in western Massachusetts are getting a boost from the National Guard – part of an ongoing partnership between the Guard and the Hampden District Attorney’s Office.
Joined by the Massachusetts National Guard’s Adjutant General and State Police Superintendent, District Attorney Anthony Gulluni says collaborations between the entities are being bolstered when it comes to tackling the sale of narcotics.
“The Massachusetts National Guard Counterdrug Program has assisted my office and the Massachusetts State Police by recently providing approximately $285,000 worth of equipment,” Gulluni said during a press conference Monday. “[This] will significantly aid our efforts to combat illicit narcotic trafficking in the region by targeting transnational criminal organizations and other trafficking organizations and violent gangs.”
Standing before an array of high-tech equipment designed to detect and identify narcotics, Gulluni told reporters that a partnership with the state National Guard goes back to 2015.
It’s led to developments like a National Guard member being assigned to the DA’s office, assisting with “counterdrug information systems” and providing intelligence analysis.
Now, it’s yielding equipment and software like a “Handheld Backscatter,” described as a narcotic-detecting device that uses X-Ray imagery to get the job done or an MX 908 Drug Analyzer – capable of detecting even trace amounts of drugs in moments.
They are tools that will be used by the DA’s office, the Massachusetts State Police Detective Unit assigned to it and members of the MSP B-Troop barracks, says State Police Superintendent Geoffrey Noble.
“The tools the National Guard and the New England HIDTA have provided to B-Troop personnel, as part of this announcement, do two important things - first, they will support counter narcotics investigations by allowing lawful access to critical information from cell phones, computers and other devices used in criminal enterprises,” Noble said. “Second, they will significantly enhance the ability of troopers in the field to quickly identify narcotics and controlled substances from a safe distance.
HIDTA, or the New England High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program, is a program functioning under the federal Office of National Drug Policy, says HIDTA Deputy Director David Kelley.
Overseeing operations in six states, Kelley says the longstanding partnership is considered a successful one – able to identify and disrupt drug trafficking organizations in multiple ways as is.
“We have a number of projects that we undertake and one of which is our domestic highway enforcement program - the I-91 corridor that travels through this state and this county is patrolled by the Massachusetts State Police: I will tell you that their efforts on 91 to intercept, prevent drugs from entering this community is nothing less than stellar,” he said.
He called the recently-supplied equipment “critical” to those efforts.
Gulluni adds that the boost comes at a time when opioid-related overdose deaths stall and in some cases decline in Massachusetts.
The state experienced 2,100 such deaths in 2023, a drop of about 200 from the year before. Hampden County numbers, meanwhile, are hovering around 220 a year.
According to the state, fentanyl was present in 96 percent of the opioid-related OD deaths that received a toxicology screening in Hampden County – 210 of 219 cases screened.
The synthetic narcotic that remains on the radar of agencies across the country, according to Massachusetts National Guard Major General Gary Keefe.
“We look at these drugs, now, as weapons,” the Adjutant General said. “If you follow where fentanyl comes from - this is an international problem and it's one, as I said, that is attacking our nation. So, behind the aggressive nature that the district attorney and the team here has taken in eradicating this, we're just very, very proud to do what we can to continue to support the mission of getting rid of this and making sure that Hampden County and the neighborhoods in Hampden County are safer places for people to live and raise families.”
