The Dane County Narcotics and Gang Task Force has received a Drug Unit of the Year Award.

The Wisconsin Narcotics Officers Association bestowed the honor on the Dane County law enforcement group during an annual award ceremony held in Green Bay this past August.

The Wisconsin Narcotics Officers Association recognizes both individuals, and units for outstanding achievements in drug enforcement.

The Dane County Narcotics and Gang Task Force had provided nomination materials that highlighted some of group's successes:

"Some of the Unit statistics for 2007/2008 show we executed 95 search warrants, seized 3,266 grams of cocaine base, 3811 grams of cocaine, 1229 grams of heroin, 1691 ounces of marijuana, 23 grams of mushrooms, 8485 tablets of ecstasy/MDMA, 6339 grams of opium soaked woodchips, $232,655 in US Currency, and 41 guns. During this time 377 arrests were made resulting in 836 criminal charges.

During the course of one investigation involving a package interdiction of 6339 grams of opium soaked wood chips out of Laos, Detectives also recovered 8472 tablets of ecstasy/MDMA valued at $169,440. This appears to be the largest single seizure of MDMA in the history of the Dane County Narcotics and Gang Task Force.

During a different investigation - that focused on powder cocaine, a search warrant conducted after an arrest and seizure of a kilo of cocaine, resulted in the additional seizure of a kilo of extremely pure heroin valued at approximately $150,000. This also appears to be the largest single seizure of heroin in the history of the Dane County Narcotics and Gang Task Force."

The unit is comprised of officers from the Madison Police, and UW Police departments, as well as deputies from the Dane County Sheriff's Department.