Former Organized Crime Investigator Reveals Top Police Tactic for Fighting Transnational Crime
Difference Between Having an “Extremely Successful Investigation” or Just an “Investigation.”
Former FBI Special Agent Daniel Brunner said the number one thing law enforcement can do to fight back and get in front of transnational criminal organizations like Tren de Aragua (TDA) is to get officers who speak Spanish.
He said that this is the “most difficult thing.”
“Being able to speak Spanish will facilitate you being able to get sources. Getting sources and informants will get you inside the crew. If you are not inside the crew it's going to be very difficult to get a good investigation on a transcontinental criminal organization,” he said.
“The most successful investigations all start with the investigator, and if that investigator can speak Spanish, everything else can come,” the co-founder of the Brunner Sierra Group said.
Another thing law enforcement can do, according to Brunner, is to get an education about how these organizations work.
“Up here in Montana, they never encounter transnational criminal organizations,” he said.
Brunner said it is important for law enforcement to know how to investigate transnational criminal organization crimes and “how to do a RICO investigation.”
Brunner said in Bozeman, which is a “hotbed” for TDA, its police department only has one officer who speaks Spanish. He added that he believes the Gallatin County Sheriff’s Department used to have two officers who spoke Spanish, but now it is down to just one person.
“I'm talking about being able to communicate with an informant. I'm not talking about having basic rudimentary Spanish being able to do a vehicle stop and get through the first five minutes of the situation. I'm talking about being able to hold a conversation type of fluency.”
Gallatin County Sheriff’s Department and Bozeman Police Department do not have the officers who can do that, according to Brunner.
“Do they have officers that can conduct a very complicated investigation? I'm sure they do. They're both very good departments. They both have a very good handle on law enforcement, and I'm never gonna question an agency's ability to conduct a complicated investigation.”
Brunner, who has 15 years of experience investigating Hispanic organized crime, said that speaking Spanish is paramount to having an “extremely successful investigation” or just an “investigation.”
“Currently, I think the Gallatin County Sheriff's Office and Bozeman PD have their work cut out for them. Can they recruit Spanish-speaking officers? Yes. Should they? Yes. Will they? That's up to them,” he said.
The law enforcement expert added, “I don't know if they will. I think they should. I think they do see the growing Hispanic community here in the valley, and I think that should be paramount. That should be on their to-do list of getting one to two officers who speak Spanish fluently and be able to run an investigation if one were to come up.”
These types of crimes that TDA commits “do not show up on the front door,” he said.
“You have to have an officer up there who's talking, working, building relationships with people in the Hispanic community and getting the ability of them to provide that officer information,” Brunner said.
Brunner, who runs the Brunner Sierra Group Substack, said that he thinks TDA is ahead of law enforcement.
Due to the poor border security under the Biden administration, which Brunner called “absolutely atrociously horrible,” the law enforcement expert said TDA grew their numbers “very quickly.”
Brunner previously told The Montana Chronicles that TDA was “MS-13 2.0 on steroids.”
He described many members of the criminal organization as former Venezuelan military members “who went into the criminal element.”
Brunner said that the law enforcement community is learning about TDA. He added that TDA is “ahead of the curve,” but it doesn’t mean “law enforcement can’t catch up.”
The Chronicles tried to contact the Bozeman Police Department and Gallatin County Sherriff’s Office, but they did not respond before publishing time.
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Zachery Schmidt is the founder of The Montana Chronicles. If you have any tips, please send them to montanachronicles@proton.me.