| Situation |
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Action |
- Congress creates the "Shadow Wolves" in 1972 to track drug smugglers transporting contraband
- The Shadow Wolves become the first federal law enforcement agents allowed to operate on Tohono land as smugglers use tribal lands to avoid detection
- The primary task of the Shadow Wolves is tracking smugglers through a 76-mile stretch of the Tohono O'odham nation territory along the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona; over 2.8 million acres of villages
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- March, 2003: The elite "Shadow Wolves" unit of Native American trackers is brought into DHS
- The Shadow Wolves utilize "cutting for sign", the traditional Native American method of finding and following minute clues from a barren landscape
- Officers may spend hours or days tracking in the field following a “sign” until arrests and seizures are made, or it has been determined that the traffickers of illegal drugs or illegal aliens have left the area
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| Result |
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U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement |
- The Shadow Wolves already nab 50,000 lbs of marijuana in 2007; averaging 60,000 last few years
- The Shadow Wolves have traveled to Central Asia and Eastern Europe to teach tracking skills; have been sent to Afghanistan to track Osama bin Laden
- Drug cartels in Mexico know how effective the Shadow Wolves have become and have issued death threats against them due to their success…
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"The name Shadow Wolves refers to the way we hunt, like a wolf pack."
- Officer Bryan Nez, Shadow Wolves 14-year veteran |
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NEXT 
Case# 0000035
07/05/2007 |
