United States Drug Enforcement Administration

NEWARK, N.J. – The Drug Enforcement Administration announced a new initiative, Operation Overdrive, aimed at combatting the rising rates of drug-related violent crime and overdose deaths plaguing American communities.  Last fall, DEA initiated a data-driven approach using national crime statistics and CDC data to identify hot spots of drug-related violence and overdose deaths across the country, in order to devote its law enforcement resources to where they will have the most impact: the communities where criminal drug networks are causing the most harm.

Operation Overdrive, which launched February 1, 2022, 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.  DEA, working in partnership with its fellow federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, has mapped the threats and initiated enforcement operations against those networks in 34 locations across 23 states in the initial phase of Operation Overdrive.

Today, the United States faces an unprecedented overdose epidemic claiming 275 lives every day.  Violence, often associated with drug-related activity, is also rising sharply nationwide: in 2020, homicides increased a record 30 percent, and 77 percent of the murders in the United States were committed with a firearm.  In 2021, DEA and its law enforcement partners seized more than 8,700 firearms connected to investigations of drug trafficking organizations.

Operation Overdrive revealed alarming trends about the networks that DEA has mapped. 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 (fentanyl or methamphetamine) are also engaged in violent gun crimes.

“DEA’s objective is clear,” said DEA Administrator Anne Milgram. “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.”

“New Jersey has not been immune to the rise in drug-related violent crime or the surge in drug overdose fatalities facing the rest of the country,” said DEA New Jersey Division Special Agent in Charge Susan A. Gibson. “Operation Overdrive will reinforce our commitment to working with our partners in Camden and Newark to take back the neighborhoods that criminals choose to exploit for their own profit. We will utilize all of our resources to go after those responsible for the increases in crime, violence, and drug overdoses.” 

“I want to thank the DOJ and DEA Administrator, Anne Milgram, for providing us with more strategic and focused resources to not only combat violent crime associated with narcotics distribution, but more importantly to assist our agency with getting poison like fentanyl and heroin off our streets and out of our neighborhoods,” Camden County Police Chief Gabe Rodriguez said. “This new initiative will work in tandem with our front line police officers and narcotics division to make the city a safer place for our children and families and help us continue to make progress against violent crime in Camden.”

“The Newark Police Division is grateful to have the DEA’s invaluable partnership in combatting drug-related violence in our communities,” Newark Public Safety Director Brian A. O’Hara said. “Similar to every other major U.S. city, Newark saw an uptick in violence last year, with non-fatal shootings rising by 13 percent when compared to year 2020. But under the direction of DEA Special-Agent-in-Charge Susan Gibson, we are confident that the DEA’s Operation Overdrive will result in charging key drug players with major crimes and building conspiracy cases. And as gun violence is often correlated with drug-related skirmishes, we are confident that such a surgical approach will result in fewer victims of gun violence in our City, and offer our residents a greater sense of safety and wellbeing.”

Operation Overdrive Phase I 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

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