On the Lookout with Northern Michigan‘s FBI: Two Agents Cover Everything from Terrorism, Drugs and Scams to Civil Rights

Sept. 11, 2002

Like many of us in the wake of September 11, things changed for the two special agents in the Traverse City office of the FBI. During the past year, they‘ve responded to over 100 calls on everything from Anthrax to “my neighbor looks like a terrorist“ to “I saw someone driving around the fuel depot storage tanks,“ says Richard Licht, supervisory special agent for Northwest Lower Michigan.
“We‘ve had a significant amount of leads come up,“ he says. “When things got really heavy, I sent a couple of people up from Lansing to cover leads and help out.“
Licht oversees agents in both the East Lansing and Traverse City FBI offices. Locally, two special agents, Rebecca Granger and Robert BirdSong, keep busy covering a 10-county area.
Since September 11, they‘ve also had to deal with a number of civil rights issues, like helping with a mandate from the attorney general to interview 5,000 people nation-wide who entered the U.S. from countries known to have strong Al Qaeda foundations. “That was a big deal down in Lansing, because we had a significant number of foreign students at the university who were interviewed,“ notes Licht.

CIVIL RIGHTS
He adds that while interviews such as those are important to national security, it‘s also important to ensure that people‘s civil rights aren‘t violated.
“A lot of people think the bureau‘s out there stomping on everybody‘s civil rights, but we have more training and expertise in that area than you‘d ever expect, and I think that‘s good,“ notes Licht. “Typically, resident agents are members of the community they work in... their kids attend schools, they pay taxes there, and they have a vested interested in making sure people are safe and their rights are protected.“
He notes that while hate crimes against people of Middle Eastern nationality have probably increased nation-wide, that hasn‘t been the case locally. “Somebody put a bullet through the Islamic Center in East Lansing, but nothing like that has happened up here.“

A WIDE WATERFRONT OF CRIME
The Traverse City office of the FBI is one of a dozen or so in the state, all reporting to division headquarters in Detroit. Granger and BirdSong investigate 280 federal violations, including organized crime, white collar crime, drugs, counter-terrorism, and national foreign intelligence. Fraudulent loan applications, Medicare fraud, Nigerian scam groups, and Internet child porn all fall under their jurisdiction.
Much of their work involves tribal entities, and because there are only two local agents, it‘s important to work closely not only with tribal police, but other city, county and federal law enforcement entities.
“I worked on a drug squad in Chicago with 20 guys, and if you needed to do an arrest or surveillance, 20 people is a significant number,“ notes Licht. “But with just two resident agents in Traverse City, you can be absolutely without affect unless you have good liaison relationships with other local agencies. I can think of only a handful of things that aren‘t conducted jointly with other law enforcement agencies.“

DRUG CONNECTION
Illegal drug cases also take up a significant portion of their time, such as the one a few years ago involving a Leelanau County resident growing a large number of marijuana plants on his land. “That took three or four months to make an arrest, because we had to first establish the existence of the grow operation,“ explains Licht. “Grow operations are somewhat different because they‘re plants stuck in the ground. But if you have a packaged illegal drug that‘s being transported or delivered or consumed, that‘s a lot more expedited investigation than a grow
operation investigation.“
As with the Leelanau case, Licht says it‘s typical for drug cases to involve not young kids growing a few plants under a grow light in their basement, but older people with enough cash to maintain the operation.
“You‘d think that the drugs and rave parties fairly prevalent in this part of the state are limited to a younger segment of the population, but I don‘t think that‘s true,“ he says. “Multi-level cocaine dealers aren‘t that common up here, but there are a few, and they‘ll break it down and sell it in smaller amounts. Obviously, you have to have a demand for it and some of these drugs are
expensive. So you probably get a much older population who can afford to do it.“

GLAMOR?
And as for that glamorous persona of the FBI perpetuated by Hollywood movie
producers? Don‘t believe it. Just ask an agent who‘s been called out to the reservation at 3 a.m., has to deal with a bloody crime scene, transport a body, talk to grieving family, fingerprint a dead body, and drive to Grand Rapids to watch an autopsy.
“It‘s a great job, but the bottom line is there‘s nothing glamorous about it,“ says Licht.

Check out www.fbi.gov for more on the FBI.