ROCHESTER, N.Y. — New York State Police are working to stem the flow of illegal drugs into Western New York. This comes after a Venezuelan gang with ties to Rochester was deemed a terrorist organization.

At a news conference earlier this week, a sheriff in Texas showed a map outlining the reach and impact of the gang called “Tren de Aragua” or TDA. On that map, there is a dot over Western New York. Texas Governor Gregg Abbott says he’s creating a strike team of agencies to target the group and they’re going to build a database with known members of TDA.

State troopers who News10NBC spoke with didn’t want to talk specifically about the gang, as they don’t want to tip off the bad guys. However, police did walk through some of the tools they have to combat drug trafficking.

Trooper Lynnea Crane says no one agency leads the charge. It’s a collaboration starting at the local police force and going all the way up to Drug Enforcement Agency agents. One key player you might not expect is the Postal Service. They scan packages and pull a whole bunch of drugs every day.

State Police, like many agencies, is part of teams and task forces across the state that work to get ahead of drug trafficking. It’s a combination of informants, undercover work, and scanning social media, and other online resources. It’s a constant operation, one that’s particularly busy in our area.

Trooper Crane says we see a lot of action, sitting right on the I-90 corridor.

“This hits close to home. This is bringing illicit drugs to our community and causing drug addiction and that causes a lot of other issues. So, this is something we’re very much involved in and we want to make sure this is not happening and entering New York State,” she said.

All their intelligence goes into what Trooper Crane called a fusion center. That’s an information hub where they gather everything they can on local, national, and international gangs. Then, they send it out to agencies across the state to help with takedowns big and small.

We just saw this work in action with a massive drug bust out of Ontario County. Trooper Crane gave some numbers on that bust to show the scale. Around 20 people are facing charges of trafficking:

• 16 pounds of cocaine
• Three pounds of kilo liquid xylzine which is a stronger version of fentanyl
• Five pounds of fentanyl
• Hundreds of pills,
• Half a pound of meth
• Over 500 pounds of black market weed a month
• Two pounds of heroin
• Eight guns including a machine gun.

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