What Type of Dealer Do the Police Target in Their Undercover Operations?

Interviewer: Do the police target any just any dealer or do they target higher volume drug dealers?

Mike Kramer: It depends upon the police officer and the police jurisdiction involved. Obviously, if it’s a drug investigation in a local town or village, they usually target relatively small sellers in that town or village.

In a Small Town, the Police Will Target Any Volume Drug Dealer

If it’s an undercover operation conducted by the West Justice County District Attorney’s Office, or it’s just the West County Police and it is county wide, they will target a higher volume drug dealer. The scope of the operation depends on the jurisdiction.

Interviewer: Are small volume dealers paranoia is justified if they live in a smaller town?

Mike Kramer: Yes, they have reason to be.

What Is the Typical Scenario for the Undercover Police Operation?

Interviewer: What is the typical scenario of an undercover police operation?

The Police Officer May Befriend a Known Drug User in Order to Establish Contact with the Drug Dealer

Mike Kramer: What normally happens in an undercover police operation is the officer befriends a person who has a drug problem or has for other reasons purchased drugs from a particular individual.

Most Large Volume Dealers Are Wary about Taking on New Customers Unless They Are Introduced

The officer gets the drug user to introduce him to the ultimate seller as a friend, as someone that they know they can trust and that’s usually how these undercover officers work. Usually people who are in the business of selling drugs are very wary of just selling to anybody, or just selling to any stranger.

The Street Dealers Are the Most at Risk for Arrests

The only time they would make that mistake is if they were a street dealer, looking for drivers to pull-up and make a quick transaction. In those cases, they would sell to anybody, those are the dealers that take the biggest risk, but those are the cases that are least priority because they have not large volume drug dealers.

Interviewer: What are the myths about undercover officers, for example, that they do they lie to you and do they do take drugs? What can they do and what can’t they do?

Michael Kramer provides legal insights on the types of drug dealers targeted in undercover operations.

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Undercover Officers Are Not Allowed to Violate Any Law When Conducting an Investigation

Mike Kramer: Obviously they can’t violate the law during their investigation.

Interviewer: Have you ever encountered undercover officers that will do drugs in front of somebody as part of the sale?

Mike Kramer: They’re not supposed to. They would be violating the law and, if it can be proven, would result in dismissal of the case.

The Police Do Try to Avoid Publicity When Making Drugs Arrests

Interviewer: That’s what we see on TV. When the police go to arrest somebody, do they just show up and arrest the person? Do they try to keep the arrests low key?

Mike Kramer: It depends upon the level of the case. If it’s a normal automobile stop and they conduct the search of the car, and they find a small quantity of drugs, they arrest right then and there.

If it’s a drug investigation, the police would proceed to obtain a search warrant, they enter a house and depending upon what they found in the house and who is present at the time, they would make the arrest.

If it’s a drug sale and it is part of the type of investigation I previously described lasting three to six months, once the police officer surfaces, they swear out arrest warrants for a whole slew of persons and those are the ones with highest publicity you see in the papers.

For example, when you read about 16 people arrested or 20 people arrested, those are usually the result of an undercover operation. The hottest cases are those harder cases to prove but they get the most publicity.

Why Does Publicity Make the Police’s Case Harder to Prove?

Interviewer: Why would those be the hardest cases to prove?

Their Evidence Rests More on the Word of the Undercover Officer

Mike Kramer: The only evidence is word of the undercover police officer. Not every drug sale is observed by other officers that can corroborate the drug sale. Most of his transactions are inside of the building, inside of a house or a club; therefore, you really have just the word of the police officer and where he says he obtained the drugs. He would turn the evidence over at the end of that day and label it with the location, date and name of the person he purchased it from.

Attorney Kramer Finds Drug-Related Cases Very Defensible When the State’s Case Relies More on Memory than Physical Evidence

But, basically, because these cases rely on the memory of the police officer over three months to six months, these cases are the easiest type of cases to attack.

My practice focuses exclusively on DWI, TRAFFIC and CRIMINAL matters. As a sole practitioner, he provides his client’s accessibility and a degree of personal attention that large firms cannot. For other attorneys such cases are a small portion of their practice.