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Marine Patrols “S.H.I.E.L.D.” Suffolk Waterways The Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office working cooperatively with over thirty agencies responsible for marine patrol in Suffolk County, and in conjunction with the NYS division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services Office of Counter-Terrorism, United States Coast Guard and Customs and Border Protection conducted Operation S.H.I.E.L.D. (Suffolk Homeland Security Interdiction and Education for Long Island Defense), over the July fourth weekend. Operation S.H.I.E.L.D. is aimed at identifying, limiting and disrupting the ability of terrorists, traffickers and immigration law violators to surreptitiously enter the United States. Operation S.H.I.E.L.D. systematically listed all possible marinas and major bodies of water throughout SuffolkCounty. Then utilizing all marine patrols throughout the county simultaneously checked each one over the weekend for foreign vessels, suspicious vessels, hazmat/radiological/WMD sources. It also contained an educational component which provided suspicious indicator information, and foreign arrival information which was distributed to the maritime public. Members of the marine patrols, some with border patrol officers embedded within them, checked over 280 marinas. These marinas were located in 49 bodies of water, stretching from the Great South Bay to Montauk, and HuntingtonBay to Fishers Island. The operation encompassed 10 townships and 20 villages having navigable waters in SuffolkCounty. Nearly 1000 miles of shoreline surrounding the areas were checked. In total over 380 vessels were checked, including 29 foreign flagged vessels. 10 Federal customs violations were cited, which included several failure to report arrival violations. 123 N.Y.S. navigation law violations were cited, which included registration and equipment violations. Four individuals were arrested on board four separate foreign vessels for illegally possessing handguns. Haz-Mat officers detected 2 radiation sources which were mitigated as safe sources. Intelligence gathered during the operation was shared between agencies and will assist in dealing with patterns of arrival of foreign vessels, educating the foreign vessels in customs procedures when entering the United States, and gathering contraband and smuggling interdiction intelligence. Informational handouts and posters distributed during the operation will assist law enforcement agencies with gathering information from the public in the future, and the public is reminded, “IF YOU SEE SOMETHING SAY SOMETHING”. Future S.H.I.E.L.D. operations are planned for random upcoming dates throughout the season.
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