London’s police chief says he hopes last week’s arrest of two dozen people on drug charges – most of them related to trafficking heroin, methamphetamine and fentanyl -- makes Laurel County a safer place to live. Chuck Johnson says the drug interdiction task force is run by the Laurel Sheriff’s Office and spent months gathering information from informants and other sources before presenting the evidence to a grand jury.
“You have to protect the identity of these informants and, and you got to, you know, you have to give a lot of priority to their safety is always well as the safety of the officers.”
Johnson says the task force is federally funded as part of the HIDA program – which stands for High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area. He says one challenge for the task force is keeping up with the irregular hours kept by members of the drug trade – and there are many others.
“Keeping the investigation going, you know, through over the over the period of months, you know, keeping up with the investigation, keeping up with the evidence of the cases. And, you know, putting it all together and getting ready to present to a grand jury. It's, it's a lot of work.”
Most of the arrests took place in Laurel County.
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