Shadow Wolves: Special unit tracks down criminal aliens

(The following is based on information obtained from the Department of Homeland Security by the National Association of Chiefs of Police.)

The Shadow Wolves comprise an Immigration and Customs Enforcement tactical patrol unit based on the Native American Tohono O’odham Nation in southern Arizona. Shadow Wolf officers are known for their ability to track alien and drug smugglers as they attempt to smuggle their illegal commodities across the border.

The unit boasts an esteemed history of tracking passed down from generation to generation. The name “Shadow Wolves” refers to the way the unit hunts, like a wolf pack. When one wolf finds prey, it calls in the rest of the wolf pack.

The Shadow Wolves were founded in 1972 as an initiative undertaken by the U.S. Congress to track drug smugglers on Native American lands in the American Southwest. Despite possession of high-tech equipment, the unit relies mainly on traditional methods of tracking, primarily a technique called “cutting for sign.”

“Cutting” is searching for and analyzing “sign,” which includes any kind of physical evidence (footprints, tire tracks, thread, clothing, etc). Officers may spend hours or days tracking in the field following a “sign” until arrests and seizures are made, or it has been determined that the contraband has been loaded into a vehicle and transported from the area.

The Shadow Wolves methodical approach has enabled them to track and apprehend smugglers in parts of the Southwestern U.S. across arduous desert terrain and rugged mountainous areas where tracks left by smugglers may be no more than an overturned pebble or an almost indistinguishable impression in the sand

An experienced Shadow Wolf can spot small items snagged on branches, twigs bent or broken, or even a single fiber of cloth or burlap from a sack or bag that could be filled with drugs. They can read faint footprints in the dust and determine when they were made, where they came from and whether or not traffickers are carrying additional weight such as backpacks filled with drugs.

The Shadow Wolves are the Department of Homeland Security’s only Native American tracking unit.

The Tohono O’odham Nation, patrolled by the Shadow Wolves, covers 2.8 million acres and is comprised mainly of small, scattered villages.

The Shadow Wolves have traveled to Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia to teach ancient tracking skills to customs officials, border guards, and national police in those countries in order to detect and follow the tracks of people who may be transporting components of weapons of mass destruction.

The current unit consists of 15 Native American Patrol Officers representing 8 Native American tribes, (Tohono O’odham, Navajo, Kiowa, Sioux, Blackfeet, Yurok, Omaha and Pima) who employ traditional tracking skills combined with modern law enforcement technology to enforce immigration and customs laws on the 76-mile stretch of land the Tohono O’odham Nation shares with Mexico.

The unit was transferred back to ICE from CBP’s Border Patrol in October 2006 and is being utilized to enhance ICE investigations and operations on the Tohono O’odham Nation.

Since transferring back to ICE in October 2006, the fifteen-member unit is responsible for the seizure of over 31,000 pounds of marijuana, over forty-three criminal arrests of smugglers and the seizure of 16 vehicles.

Officers estimate in recent years they have seized an average of 60,000 pounds of illegal drugs a year.

Meanwhile, the southern border has experienced a dramatic surge in cross-border crime and violence in recent years due to intense competition between Mexican drug cartels and criminal smuggling organizations that employ predatory tactics to realize their profits.

In response to this trend, ICE has partnered with federal, state, local and foreign law enforcement counterparts to create the Border Enforcement Security Task Force (BEST) initiative, a series of multi-agency task forces developed as a comprehensive approach to identifying, disrupting and dismantling criminal organizations posing significant threats to border security. The task forces are designed to increase information sharing and collaboration among the agencies combating this threat on both sides of the border.