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PROJECT NARRATIVE Fargo-Moorhead has a population base of approximately 175,000 to 200,000 in the greater metropolitan area. It is uniquely situated on the North Dakota-Minnesota border with two major Interstate highways intersecting in Fargo. Because of the unique location of Fargo, drug traffickers have often taken advantage of the border to thwart law enforcement efforts to apprehend and prosecute offenders. Traffickers utilize I-29 which is a North-South route, along with I-94's East-West route to transport drugs from larger metropolitan cities such as, Minneapolis and Chicago and other source states such as, Washington, Oregon, Texas and California into North Dakota. Methamphetamine continues to make up a major portion of the investigations that are conducted by the CCDTF due to its popularity, highly addictive nature and availability of precursors to manufacture the substance. Most of the methamphetamine that is shipped to the area for distribution is concealed within vehicles. The three most popular states of origination for these shipments are: Washington, California and Texas. There continues to be a steady number of clandestine methamphetamine labs in the eastern part of North Dakota, although numbers for the entire state are down somewhat from last year. Marijuana also continues to be a popular drug in the Fargo-Moorhead area. Shipments of 20 or more pounds of marijuana are fairly common through the postal service or private mail carriers. These shipments almost exclusively originate from Texas. Larger shipments are frequently driven to the Red River Valley from Texas by individuals utilizing the North-South Interstate highway. There has been an increase in marijuana seizures at the northern border from drug smugglers that are bringing marijuana that has been grown in Canada known on the street as "BC Bud". The price on the street for this type of marijuana is at least double that of marijuana originating from Mexico or Texas due to the high THC content. Crack cocaine is on the increase in the Fargo-Moorhead area. A large majority of the crack cocaine in the Fargo area comes from cities along I-94 to include: St. Cloud, Minneapolis and Chicago. Powder cocaine is also transported to the Fargo-Moorhead area and "rocked up" into crack. There have been several shipments of Khat totaling in excess of several hundred pounds that have been intercepted that were in route to the Fargo-Moorhead area. These shipments originate from outside the United States and are ultimately destined to specific cultural populations located in eastern North Dakota and Minneapolis, Minnesota. Black Tar Heroin is shipped in mostly from approximately two pounds Black Tar used in addicted to the drug. White powder heroin Minneapolis. The white powder heroin does heroin. Mexico through Texas. There is the Red River Valley each year by those is also brought into the Fargo area from not seem to be as popular as the black tar This project will be a multi-jurisdictional drug task force focusing in the Cass County area. It is the intent of the Task Force to identify, apprehend and prosecute street level offenders, to work toward developing cases on the wholesale offenders and to remove the out of state sources of supply. Assigned narcotics investigators will be responsible for the investigation of narcotics violations, exchange of information with other investigators, and briefing of local and Federal prosecutors of current investigative efforts as needed. Cooperation between federal and state prosecutors, as well as the HIDTA prosecutor, will be solicited. Federal Grand Juries will be used to further conspiracy investigations along with working in concert with the Federal Task Force to further these conspiracy investigations. Undercover purchases of evidence will be made.