Team Players

An alphabet soup of security-related intergovernmental organizations have cropped up along the southwest border. Here are some of the key players.

Border Enforcement Security Task Forces
More than a dozen multiagency BEST teams, led by ICE, identify, disrupt and dismantle criminal organizations that pose a threat to border security.

Border Violence Intelligence Cell
Located at the El Paso Intelligence Center, the BVIC is ICE's central point for analyzing all-source intelligence.

El Paso Intelligence Center
This is a multiagency center that links intelligence to operations.

High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas
Specific areas where multiagency groups at all levels of government focus on counternarcotics.

Human Smuggling and Trafficking Center
This multiagency organization represents DHS, Justice, State and the intelligence community.

Law Enforcement Tactical Centers
CBP has eight of these information-gathering centers for local law enforcement to share intelligence with the bureau.

Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces
The centerpiece of the attorney general's drug supply reduction strategy. The principal mission of the OCDETF program is to identify, disrupt and dismantle the most serious drug trafficking and money laundering organizations and those primarily responsible for the nation's drug supply. Members include ATF, the Drug Enforcement Administration, FBI, ICE, the Internal Revenue Service, U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Marshal Service, among others.

OCDETF Fusion Center
The OFC gathers, stores and analyzes all-source drug and related financial investigative information and intelligence to support coordinated, multijurisdictional operations focused on the disruption and dismantlement of the most significant drug trafficking and money laundering enterprises.

Southwest Intelligence Group
SWIG was created by the FBI as a clearinghouse for all bureau activities involving Mexico. The group focuses on public corruption, kidnappings and extortion relating to Southwest border issues.

Weapons Virtual Task Force
ICE initiated this group to create virtual communities where law enforcement can rapidly share intelligence and communicate in a secure environment through the Homeland Security Information Network.