Organized Crime and Use of Violence

working with DEA in the past 2 years to develop the kind of relationship which will permit Federal agencies in a cooperative way to successfully deal with the narcotics menace.

[At this point Senator Javits withdrew from the hearing room.] Mr. WEBSTER. Some of our efforts have not been particularly productive; others have been strikingly so. The work in Florida, the bank investigations have proved extremely useful. Our people have been meeting regularly with Administrator Peter Bensinger's people in the key cities around the country.

We did not do as well in New York or Chicago as we would have liked. In Florida and Los Angeles, we developed quite a bit of cooperative effort. Both Peter Bensinger and I are committed to increasing that cooperative effort.

Senator DECONCINI. What about the local law enforcement area of organized crime and FBI involvement?

Mr. WEBSTER. Local law enforcement generally has been most cooperative in working with us. In some areas where there is a question of involvement of local law enforcement with political groups that have underworld tie-ins, we have not attempted to be forthcoming with the investigations that we were conducting, but wherever it has been possible to do so, we have worked closely with local law enforcement.

Senator DECONCINI. Judge Webster, the GAO did a study regarding Federal law enforcement successes over the last 10 years on narcotics. As part of that study they point out that in their estimation. there is about 15,000 local law enforcement officials that are "credible" and could be used by Federal efforts and are not, for the most part. Would you say that is probably true on the FBI's effort in organized crime also?

Mr. WEBSTER. Well, I think that the vast majority of law enforcement agencies are-it is only the occasional one, and not the organization itself

Senator DECONCINI. Does the FBI get involved in coordinated efforts with local law enforcement agencies on organized crime? Mr. WEBSTER. In some cities that is so; yes.

Senator DECONCINI. Is that prevalent? Is it an expanding effort? Mr. WEBSTER. Yes; I believe it is commonplace.

Senator DECONCINI. Can you give us any examples of local law enforcement that your agency is involved in on organized crime without giving a specific case?

Mr. WEBSTER. In New England, we conducted a fencing operation directed against some highly organized hijacking operations of trucks and cargo. We were losing the trucks as well as cargo. The trucks were disappearing into the chop shops at the rate of about two a week. Working closely with local New England law enforcement agencies, we set up an undercover operation which, when we concluded it, not only had restored the money and stolen cargo, but for 7 months there was not a recurrence of that hijacking operation in the New England

area.

Senator DECONCINI. Is that a pretty common type of cooperative effort?

Mr. WEBSTER. It is a good example of the deterrent effect in working together. There are others that could be given utilizing the same basic

Chairman NUNN. Senator DeConcini, we are delighted to have you with us today. We will be pleased for you to participate.

Senator DECONCINI. Mr. Chairman, I thank you for the time. Realizing I am not a member of the committee, I will be as brief as I can. I thank you, Mr. Chairman and Senator Percy, for the invitation.

I have a couple of general questions for the judge. In your estimate, how successful has the effort been on the Federal level of reducing organized crime influence in the United States?

Mr. WEBSTER. I think that this has been one of the most difficult areas and probably one in which successes have not been spectacular in the sense that our real objective in organized crime is to reach the top.

That has been difficult because of buffering and insulation that protects the top figures. Early on, there was a problem of actually identifying the top figures. So that if you were to ask me over the last decade how successful we have been, I would say not as successful as the FBI would have liked to have been.

You are asking where do we think we are going at the present time, I think the curve is going up because we have been more successful in identifying our targets, and we are using techniques that were not used successfully or at all in the past. We have demonstrated the validity, the effectiveness of undercover work, for instance.

We now have enhanced our ability to analyze, which was not really present in the past, through the use of computer technology, the organized crime information system, which is a program we have had on various major investigations which went on line April 15 in Detroit and in a very short while will be in all of the major cities where organized crime is present.

The commitment of resources is there. We moved more of our troops into this field than we have in the past. So the promise is considerably brighter.

Senator DECONCINI. Over the last decade, would you say, generally, the Federal effort had not been very successful?

Mr. WEBSTER. Well, it is a question of relative to what? Organized crime continues, the same family units are still in existence. We have

some new ones now.

Senator DECONCINI. Relative to the growth in organized crime and what you think it is, would you say the effort has not been very successful?

Mr. WEBSTER. The effort on the resources that were available and the know-how probably has not been as productive as all of us would have liked to have seen it, but as I mentioned earlier, we have marshaled our resources now in this direction and we are beginning to see some very real returns coming through. We will see some this year. Senator DECONCINI. Judge Webster, as part of the marshaling of the resources and giving more direction effort toward organized crime, what is the Bureau doing to increase cooperation among Federal law enforcement agencies, and if they are, among local law enforcement agencies?

Mr. WEBSTER. I mentioned earlier that joint cooperation of Alcohol. Tobacco, and Firearms, which was very productive. We have been