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Southeastern Wisconsin drug units getting financial boost from attorney general

ELKHORN — Drug enforcement units in southeastern Wisconsin are getting a financial boost from the state attorney general’s office.

The South East Area Drug Operations Groups, which includes Walworth County, will get more than $76,000 in assistance to continue conducting multi-county drug investigations. The group, known as SEADOG, also includes Dodge, Jefferson, Kenosha and Racine counties.

Sgt. Jeff Patek, who heads the Walworth County Drug Enforcement Unit, said SEADOG is a collaboration between the five counties to expand each other’s investigative abilities.

“It gives you resources, manpower and equipment,” Patek said. “We may have a piece of equipment that another county doesn’t have. Collaborating is better than having every department having to buy that piece of equipment.”

Walworth County is the lead agency, a role that rotates among the five counties each year, Patek said.

The fund is a combination of state and federal dollars, said Kelly Kennedy, grants manager at the Wisconsin Department of Justice.

“Decades ago, it was clear that drug crimes reached over jurisdictional borders much more so that other crimes because drugs are mobile, there are trafficking corridors,” Kennedy said. “There was need for communication between these agencies.”

This need was transformed into yearly grants to boost local budgets. The total amount of grants for this year was about $797,000, Kennedy added.

“It’s really funding to specifically target drug cases, investigation and prosecution, where you have multiple agencies involved,” he said. “It streamlines investigations … hopefully so we have a more successful conclusion to the drug case.”

The Walworth County Drug Enforcement Unit handles operations such as the Nov. 3 arrest of 11 suspected drug dealers in the Lake Geneva area.

The group, along with the Lake Geneva Police Department and seven other law enforcement units, executed four search warrants, arrested 11 people on drug charges and seized five grams of heroin, nine marijuana plants, cut marijuana, nearly $3,000 in cash, a 1995 Nissan Sentra and a 2002 Chevy Trailblazer.

The investigation focused on suspected heroin and cocaine dealers, and along the way it picked up marijuana dealers and growers.

More recently, drug unit deputies and local police seized 159 marijuana plants and about 150 grams of processed marijuana after executing a search warrant at a Linn Township home Jan. 8.

Also seized at the home were drug paraphernalia, $2,070 cash and a 2002 Ford Explorer, according to the sheriff’s office.