Volume 2, Issue 1	NDPIX  NEWS	January 2001

The NDPIX Program

The National Drug Pointer Index (NDPIX) is one of many information systems accessed by Federal, state and local law enforcement agencies through the National Law Enforcement Telecommunications System (NLETS). NDPIX data formats and transaction codes conform to NLETS standards. Participation in NDPIX is, therefore, an extension of an agency's use of other NLETS-accessed systems.

Agency Qualifications

Joining NDPIX is quite easy if your agency meets the following two requirements:

1. Possesses law enforcement or criminal investigative authority; investigates drug violations; has the ability and authority to initiate an active criminal case investigation and to pursue that case to prosecution.

2. Has approval for access to the NLETS network and has one or more Originating Agency identifier (ORI) numbers assigned by the National Crime Information Center (NCIC). For information on NLETS, contact:

Mr. Timothy P. Sweeney
Executive Director
National Law Enforcement
Telecommunications System
2930 East Camelback Road, Suite 160
Phoenix, AZ 85016-4412

Registration

To register in NDPIX, contact the DEA NDPIX Support Staff for a Participation Agreement that must be signed by officials of your agency and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Along with your signed agreement, please provide DEA with your ORI numbers and the names of authorized users. The NDPIX Support Staff will provide you with a set of User Manuals and User Ids and Passwords for your authorized users.

NLETS Interface

Participants communicate with NLETS in one of three modes:

1. Directly from your agency to NLETS.
If direct, your interface with NLETS must be prepared to handle the NDPIX transaction codes and formats as specified in your NDPIX User Manual.

2. Through your state's message switching system.
If your agency is required to interface with NLETS through your state message switch system, you must determine whether that system handles NDPIX transactions. If not, your agency would have to wait until your state's system can provide you with the necessary service.

3. Through a Regional Information Sharing System (RISS)
If your state system interfaces with NLETS through a RISS, and your agency wishes to participate in the NDPIX through the RISS, both the state and the RISS can provide you with the necessary service.

Procedure

Once all agreements, authorizations, and interfaces have been established, get out your User Manual, prepare a few transactions, and direct them to the NDPIX "TEST" database as defined in your manual. Feel free to contact the Support Staff for assistance and for sample transactions that will guarantee your receipt of a full range of NDPIX Notifications. Please report to the Support Staff any problems with NDPIX operations that you encounter.

NDPIX and the Investigative Process

An investigator enters into NDPIX a target of an active drug case. NDPIX validates the entry, enters it into its database, checks it for matches to previously reported targets, and when matches are found, provides Point of Contact data to both parties to the matches. If a transaction is valid but no matches are found, NDPIX so informs the sender and the record remains in the database for matching to subsequent entries.

The follow-up phone calls to other investigators that result from matches of one's own entries to those of other investigators are essential to the success of NDPIX. Although some matches will prove to be "false positives", matching names but different people, a good match can produce useful investigative data to one or both investigators. Such contacts could, as an immediate benefit, result in an arrest or, in long term benefits, expand and enrich an investigation. NDPIX hits are typical of many investigative leads - some are dead ends but the good ones make it worth the effort.

Participant Activity

As of December 31, 2000, twenty-two state police agencies (see Table A) had message switching systems capable of handling NDPIX transactions. This opens the door to NDPIX participation for both the state police and other local agencies.

As of December 31, 2000, the NDPIX database contained over 120,000 investigative targets (see Table B). During December, 4,173 new entries were submitted to NDPIX. Follow-up phone calls could have brought many investigators into contact with one another for the exchange of information on potentially common investigative targets.

The frequency of record matches has increased with the growth of the database; this trend should continue as additional agencies begin their participation.

Table A: State Message Switch Systems Capable of Managing NDPIX Transactions

Table B: Targets in the NDPIX Database

d

Notes

The NDPIX Support Staff

As of December 31, 2000, DEA had signed Participation Agreements with 504 law enforcement agencies and had issued User Ids and passwords for more than 5,653 individuals. In August of 2000 DEA established its NDPIX Support Staff to serve the growing number of participants. The staff processes Participation Agreements; issues User Ids and Passwords; distributes User Manuals and training materials; and, handles calls for assistance.

Commercial NDPIX Software

Commercial software for the screen display of NDPIX input and output notifications is now available. Call the NDPIX Support Staff for references and for the names and addresses of vendors of this software.

Which Targets to Enter

This is a frequently asked question. Obviously, the main target in a case should be entered. Although secondary targets may not be of significant value to your investigation, they could be useful to investigators in other offices or other agencies. You should consider entering all targets for whom you have the mandatory fields of data and are being actively investigated.

The IACP Conference - 2000

At the International Association of Chiefs of Police Conference, Mrs. Judith Bertini, Deputy Chief of Intelligence, Drug Enforcement Administration, briefed the Narcotics and Dangerous Drug Committee on the National Drug Pointer Index (NDPIX). She discussed status of states with the capability to access NDPIX, number of targets entered, and future goals of NDPIX. Committee members all agreed that information sharing is important among federal/state/local law enforcement agencies. The NDPIX exhibit at the conference was very popular among law enforcement officers, including those international law enforcement officers who were not previously aware of NDPIX.

Recent NDPIX Success Stories

• A DEA Special Agent reported that he received an NDPIX Match Notification that included the POC, who is a state police investigator. The ensuing telephone conversations revealed that both were tracking the same individual. An exchange of information on addresses and other personal information led to the arrest of the individual.
  
  
• In another case, a State police officer seized a quantity of marijuana from two suspects and entered their names into NDPIX. A short time later, a federal Special Agent, working in another state, entered one of the same individuals into NDPIX. NDPIX provided both investigators with the name and phone number of the other. The subsequent exchange of information between the two investigators led to arrests and the seizure of over $100,000 in currency.

Reports of NDPIX Successes

Please submit to us any NDPIX successes that you would like to share with our readers. This could either be an arrest or a significant enhancement of an investigation that has resulted from follow-up actions that law enforcement personnel took based on the NDPIX hits and notifications.

We hope that the stories will not only reinforce the program's value to our current NDPIX participants, but also will encourage more law enforcement agencies to participate in NDPIX. The stories need not be specific in nature; we ask only for general information. Please inform the NDPIX Support staff of such stories so that they might be published in future editions.

We also request copies of any procedures you have instituted regarding the recording and tracking of NDPIX transactions and/or Match Notifications. We plan to publish such items in future editions of the NDPIX News.