On September 24, 2018, the Office of National Drug Control Policy designated ten new areas across Kentucky, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and West Virginia as High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTAs). The High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas (HIDTAs) program, which was established with the enactment of the Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1988, provides assistance to Federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies operating in areas determined to be critical drug-trafficking regions. The purpose of the program is to reduce drug trafficking and production in the United States.
The newly designated areas are:
- Allegheny, Beaver, and Washington Counties in Pennsylvania as part of the Ohio HIDTA
- Atlantic County in New Jersey as part of the Liberty Mid-Atlantic HIDTA
- Butler County in Ohio as part of the Ohio HIDTA
- Charleston County in South Carolina and the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indian Reservation in North Carolina as part of the Atlanta/Carolinas HIDTA
- Mineral County in West Virginia as part of the Washington/Baltimore HIDTA
- Montgomery and Powell Counties in Kentucky as part of the Appalachia HIDTA
Financial institutions must consider the risk of doing business in certain geographic areas that pose higher risks, such as HIDTAs, when determining their risk profile, developing internal controls, and assessing the adequacy of their overall Bank Secrecy Act/Anti-Money Laundering program. The announcement from the Office of National Drug Control Policy is available here.