San Benito County receives distinction to help fight drug trafficking

San Benito County will be getting some help from the White House to get drug trafficking out of the area.

San Benito County has a lot of rural areas making it easier for drug trafficking to get through undetected. But a new designation is hoping to change that.

The county has been designated as a high intensity drug trafficking area, or HIDTA, and will receive assistance from the federal government to combat it. The designation of being an HIDTA Initiative County means the government will provide some form of funding, equipment, or training to county law enforcement to assist in stopping drug trafficking through the area.

“The access that we have to training and equipment, a lot of it covert equipment. A lot of access to different types of vehicles, different types of aircraft, things that we can use to help in the very rural parts of our county. It’ll be a big help for us to combat the illicit drug trade that goes on here,” said San Benito Sheriff’s Captain Eric Taylor.

San Benito County was once included in the South Bay Metro Initiative within Northern California’s HIDTA program, but that ended three years ago. The Sheriff’s Department says since that ended, they still received operations assistance from neighboring counties, but had to constantly ask for other help they might need with no initiative of their own.

Now, San Benito County’s Drug Enforcement Program will be completely self-sufficient and they expect to be able to attack drug trafficking more than ever.