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Joint Interagency Task Force West
Rear Admiral James E. Rendon, Director |
Address: |
Phone and Fax: |
Email: |
Joint Interagency Task Force West |
Com: (808) 477-9708/9715 DSN: (315) 477-9708/9715 Staff Duty Officer: 808-721-9036 Fax: (808) 477-9701 |
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| Rear Admiral James E. Rendon, Director | (808) 477-9708 |
| Mr. William A. Roig, Deputy Director | (808) 477-9708 |
| Lt Col Sharon A. Stehlik, Chief of Staff Acting | (808) 477-9715 |
| CSM Anthony Marrero, Senior Enlisted Advisor | (808) 477-9709 |
| Mr. Dan Moore, Special Agent, Drug Enforcement Administration | (808) 477-9715 |
| Mr. Puputoa Mariota, Special Agent, Immigration and Customs Enforcement | (808) 477-9715 |
| Mr. Bill Kurokawa, Special Agent, Naval Criminal Investigative Service | (808) 477-9715 |
Joint Interagency Task Force West (JIATF West) is the U.S. Pacific Command (USPACOM) Executive Agent for Department of Defense (DoD) support to law enforcement for counterdrug and drug-related activities. The JIATF West team is a composite of approximately 166 active duty, reserve, DOD civilian, contractor, and U.S. and foreign law enforcement agency personnel.
Our Mission
Joint Interagency Task Force West combats drug-related transnational organized crime to reduce threats in the Asia-Pacific region in order to protect national security interests and promote regional stability.
What We Do
We bring military and law enforcement capabilities together to combat drug-related transnational crime in the Asia-Pacific Region.
Our Approach to Combating Transnational Crime
Since arriving in Hawaii in 2004, JIATF West has developed a strategy with supporting activities to face the particular challenges of the Asia-Pacific region, and to meet the evolving needs of our law enforcement partners. JIATF West works closely with senior law enforcement leadership partners across the region to increase support to major law enforcement operations.
Asia-Pacific criminal enterprise activities, including drug-trafficking, are organized on a business model of networked criminal service providers. The U.S. law enforcement strategy to combat these criminal networks concentrates on long-term criminal enterprise investigations in order to prosecute organizations' leadership and seize criminally gained assets. These efforts lead to disrupting and dismantling criminal enterprises. By joining forces with U.S. and foreign partner law enforcement agencies, we are able to effectively augment and enhance their ability to disrupt and dismantle transnational criminal enterprise networks.
The JIATF West Strategy
Our strategy is built on the premise of interagency cooperation. JIATF West partners with U.S. and foreign law enforcement agencies through regional U.S. Embassies and their respective country teams. We also partner with regional law enforcement agencies, such as New Zealand Police, Australian Federal Police, and Australian Customs Service, who coordinate complementary capabilities in the region. We bring military and law enforcement capabilities together to combat and reduce transnational crime in the Asia-Pacific.
Partnerships enable three general categories of synergy and effectiveness:
- Applying Intelligence Community resources to ongoing investigations
- Building partner nation law enforcement capabilities to increase their effectiveness
- Bring partners into a wider network of law enforcement agencies
- Hands-on and classroom training (including search and seizure, riverine operations, marksmanship, small craft maintenance, land navigation, analytical methodologies-tools-practices-techniques, and other skills)
- Physical building infrastructure development (building refurbishment, training facilities, operations center, border checkpoints, and other projects)
- Information technology for command and control centers/information exchange
- Intelligence analysis and related tradecraft to support investigations
- Detection and monitoring of criminal trafficking and activities
In 1989 the U.S. military was given statutory responsibility to detect and monitor aerial and maritime illicit drug shipments to the United States. With this statutory responsibility, the first iteration of the national task force, Joint Task Force FIVE (JTF-5), stood up in Alameda, Calf.
In 1994, the three Joint Task Forces (JTFs) were re-designated as Joint Interagency Task Forces (JIATFs) with expanded authorities under the National Interdiction Command and Control Plan (NICCP). The JIATFs coordinated and directed the detection, monitoring, and sorting of suspect drug-trafficking aircraft and vessels. Targets were turned over to appropriate U.S. law enforcement authorities for apprehension.
In 1999, JIATF East merged with JIATF South. JIATF South is located in Key West, Fla., and continues to conduct counter illicit trafficking operations, intelligence fusion and multi-senior correlation to detect, monitor, and handoff suspected illicit trafficking targets.
In 2004, JIATF West relocated to Honolulu, HI from Alameda, Calif. In conjunction with the move, we developed a strategy with supporting activities to face the particular challenges of the Asia-Pacific region, and to meet the evolving needs of our law enforcement partners. JIATF West works closely with senior law enforcement leadership partners across the region to support major law enforcement operations.
Today, JIATF West brings military and law enforcement capabilities together to combat drug-related transnational crime in the Asia-Pacific Region. JIATF West's top priority is supporting law enforcement in their efforts to reduce the illicit flow of methamphetamine, Amphetamine-Type Stimulants (ATS) and precursors intended for U.S. markets. JIATF West also has specific efforts to detect and monitor heroin and other illegal drugs originating in southeast and northeast Asia destined for U.S. markets.
The JIATF West Area of Responsibility (AOR) mirrors the USPACOM AOR, excluding the JIATF-South Joint Operating Area (JOA) in the Eastern Pacific Ocean, east of 120° W. The JIATF West AOR is defined by the area east of 17° E to 120° W into the Pacific and Indian Oceans, and the Arctic Ocean portion east of 100° E to 95° W.
Task Force Partners
