ST. LOUIS — The City of St. Louis has been pinpointed by Operation Overdrive, a new DEA initiative aimed at combatting rising drug-related violent crime and overdose deaths.
The DEA's St. Louis Division said in a Tuesday release that St. Louis and Kansas City are among 34 locations across 23 states where the DEA will focus its efforts.
This comes just weeks after DEA agents raided a Central West End apartment complex following the overdose deaths of seven people. A woman was later charged with distributing crack cocaine and fentanyl in relation to those deaths.
Operation Overdrive launched Feb. 1. It uses "a data-driven, intelligence-led approach to identify and dismantle criminal drug networks operating in areas with the highest rates of violence and overdoses," according to a press release from the DEA St. Louis Division. In its initial phase, the initiative has mapped threats and initiated enforcement operations against those networks.
The DEA said it identified hot spots of violence and overdose deaths using national crime statistics and CDC data, in order to devote resources to communities where criminal drug networks are causing the most harm.
The overdose epidemic kills 275 people every day in the United States, the DEA said. Violence, often connected to drug-related activities, has risen as well. According to the FBI, homicides increased by 30% in 2020, and 77% of murders were committed with a gun. In 2021, the DEA and law enforcement partners seized more than 8,700 guns during drug trafficking investigations.
The DEA St. Louis division seized 317 guns and record amounts of methamphetamine and fentanyl that year, and the CDC estimated 2,043 people died of a drug overdose in Missouri for the year ending in June 2021.
"Operation Overdrive revealed alarming trends about the networks that DEA has mapped," the DEA said. "The vast majority of identified criminal drug networks are engaged in gun violence. A majority of identified criminal drug networks sell fentanyl or methamphetamine, and almost all of the identified criminal drug networks that sell those deadly synthetic drugs are also engaged in violent gun crimes."
RELATED: St. Louis DEA agent says Fentanyl is becoming one of the biggest and most dangerous drug threats
Here is the full list of Operation Overdrive locations:
- Atlanta, Georgia
- Baltimore, Maryland
- Baton Rouge, Louisiana
- Bronx, New York
- Buffalo, New York
- Camden, New Jersey
- Chattanooga, Tennessee
- Chicago, Illinois
- Cincinnati, Ohio
- Cleveland, Ohio
- Columbia, South Carolina
- Dayton, Ohio
- Detroit, Michigan
- Flint, Michigan
- Indianapolis, Indiana
- Jackson, Mississippi
- Kansas City, Missouri
- Little Rock, Arkansas
- Memphis, Tennessee
- Miami, Florida
- Milwaukee, Wisconsin
- New Orleans, Louisiana
- Newark, New Jersey
- Oakland, California
- Peoria, Illinois
- Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Pine Bluff, Arkansas
- San Juan, Puerto Rico
- Richmond, Virginia
- San Bernardino, California
- St. Louis, Missouri
- Tulsa, Oklahoma
- Washington, D.C.
- Wilmington, Delaware
“DEA’s objective is clear,” said DEA Administrator Anne Milgram in a Feb. 7 release announcing the initiative.
“DEA will bring all it has to bear to make our communities safer and healthier, and to reverse the devastating trends of drug-related violence and overdoses plaguing our Nation. The gravity of these threats requires a data-driven approach to pinpoint the most dangerous networks threatening our communities, and leveraging our strongest levers across federal, state, and local partners to bring them down.”