James J.D. Ink is the Deputy Director and Senior Law Enforcement Advisor for the Joint Interagency Task Force West (JIATF West), the Executive Agent for USINDOPACOM DoD support to law enforcement for Counter-Drug and related Counter Transnational Organized Crime activities. Prior to his current roles, Mr. Ink was a special agent for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) from its creation in 2003 until 2015, and the U.S. Customs Service (USCS) prior to that.
Experience prior to JIATF West:
Mr. Ink graduated from Florida State University in 1981 with a BS Degree in criminology, and in 1988 from the University of South Carolina’s School of Law, becoming a member of the SC Bar that same year. From 1982 until 1985 Mr. Ink served with the Miami Shores Police Department in Miami Shores, Florida, and then in 1988 became a member of the U.S. Naval Reserve’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps stationed in Pearl Harbor, HI, serving in the roles of Trial Counsel and Special Assistant U.S. Attorney.
In April 1993 Mr. Ink became a criminal investigator with the SAC Miami Office of the USCS, Office of Investigations (OI), conducting long-term money laundering investigations. In June 2000 he took a position with the Office of Internal Affairs at USCS HQ in Washington, D.C., returning to OI in 2001 to a position in the Office of Planning and Policy. In 2003 he became the Assistant Director for OI’s Office of Policy, shortly after which he assumed the position of the Acting Director for the Office of Planning and Policy during the transition from the USCS to ICE HSI.
In June of 2004 Mr. Ink joined the Office of International Affairs (OIA) where he held the positions of the Deputy ICE HSI Attaché in Frankfurt, Germany, and then the Deputy Assistant Director for the Programs Division in OIA HQ, Washington, DC, which included responsibility for the OIA Trafficking in Persons (TIP) and Forced Child Labor (FCL) Programs. In 2008 Mr. Ink took over the position of the ICE HSI Regional Attaché in Singapore, with responsibility for three offices and ICE HSI activities in twelve countries, including investigative and capacity building efforts relating to money laundering, trafficking in person, narcotics trafficking, child exploitation, export control, intellectual property rights and other areas under ICE HSI’s broad investigative authorities.
From September 2013 until October 2014, Mr. Ink served as the Assistant Special Agent in Charge (ASAC) of the HSI Los Angeles Investigative Services Division, and from Oct. 2014 until August 2015 he was the ASAC of the Illicit Travel, Trade, and Financial Division for ICE HSI LA, which encompassed Financial Investigations, Trade Fraud, Document Benefit Fraud, Intellectual Property Rights and Child Exploitation Investigations. Mr. Ink currently resides in Hawaii with his wife and three children.