Curtis Tate Published

Ihlenfeld To Chair Washington-Baltimore Drug Trafficking Board

These pills were made to look like Oxycodone, but they're actually an illicit form of the potent painkiller fentanyl. A surge in police seizures of illicit fentanyl parallels a rise in overdose deaths.
These pills were made to look like Oxycodone, but they're actually an illicit form of the potent painkiller fentanyl. A surge in police seizures of illicit fentanyl parallels a rise in overdose deaths.
Tommy Farmer/Tennessee Bureau of Investigation/AP

U.S. Attorney William Ihlenfeld has been appointed chair of the Washington-Baltimore High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) executive board.

That board supports 43 drug task forces in West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia. In addition to drug seizures, they also bolster treatment and prevention efforts.

In 2022, the units disrupted the sale of more than $100 million of drugs, including fentanyl and methamphetamine.

Ihlenfeld, the U.S. attorney for the northern district of West Virginia, said he’d work to strengthen the response to the threat of Mexican drug cartels.

Ihlenfeld previously served as chair of the Appalachian High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area. That includes parts of West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee.