Bakken oil region gets crime strike force

The Department of Justice (DOJ) said it launched a special strike force Wednesday with state officials to fight organized crime in the oil-rich Bakken region of North Dakota and Montana.

The Bakken is the biggest oil drilling region outside of Texas and the third biggest in the country, producing more than 1.2 million barrels a day.

{mosads}The strike force will be based out of four main cities across the 200,000-square-mile region in western North Dakota and eastern Montana, DOJ said. It’s charged with stemming the rise of environmental crimes, methamphetamine imports from Mexico and fraud.

“The strike force will have the capability of not only dismantling local criminal organizations in the Bakken, but also to take out the national and international components of these organizations wherever they may be located,” Chris Myers, acting U.S. attorney for North Dakota said in a statement.

“The strike force will take a regional approach to a regional problem, coordinating with Montana law enforcement,” he said, pledging to work with Montana’s state and federal prosecutors.

“The Bakken’s criminal impact transcends borders and so should our law enforcement response,” said Mike Cotter, U.S. attorney for Montana.

Thanks to unconventional drilling techniques like horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, the Bakken’s production has exploded in recent years, straining the resources and infrastructure of the region, along with its law enforcement capabilities.

Federal and state officials launched a project in 2013 to fight criminal activity in the Bakken, and the FBI opened a field office in December in Williston, N.D., the center of the oil boom in the region.