Palacios, R-Saipan, said it is necessary to sign a memorandum of agreement so that the DEA and the CNMI government can observe “ground rules.”
“I don’t have any problems (with the DEA-CNMI Task Force) but it should always be a collaborative effort — there should be mutual respect,” he said.
Last year, the House of Representatives urged the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate “the highly irregular search procedure conducted only for Chinese visitors.”
The lawmakers also asked the department to inform Chinese officials that the controversial search was conducted only by federal agents and not by representatives of the CNMI government.
Rep. Victor B. Hocog, Ind.-Rota, wants the DEA to explain why it searched the Chinese tourists without notifying CNMI leaders.
“It is never a bad policy to work together,” he said. “What is very important is to find out what inspired the overall search and without knowing the motive, without knowing why that happened I guess that should be clarified first before we can consider giving assistance to the DEA.”
DEA Senior Special Agent Daniel Holcomb said they want to revive the task force with the CNMI, but added that “we will be more selective now about who can join the task force to safeguard case information.”
The Saipan Chamber of Commerce, for its part, has requested Gov. Benigno R. Fitial to reinstate the CNMI members of the task forces “in order to combat the import, manufacture, and sale of illegal drugs” in the islands.
Last year, the governor pulled off local Customs and police personnel from the CNMI/DEA task force following the controversial search of tourists on a charter flight from China.
The DEA agents were accused of inappropriately conducting body search on 147 Chinese tourists aboard a Shanghai Airline flight.
No drugs were found in the possession of the passengers.
