Special Task Force of National Anti-Drug Department – Slovakia

Last updated February 23, 2019

Special Task Force of the National Anti-drug Department of Slovakia (hereinafter NADSTF) was created in 1996 as a response to the peculiarity of anti-drug actions and specific situations where trespassers act with greater conspiracy and violence than average criminals.

Slovakia, officially the Slovak Republic, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the west, and the Czech Republic to the northwest. Slovakia's territory spans about 49,000 square kilometres (19,000 sq mi) and is mostly mountainous. The population is over 5.4 million and consists mostly of Slovaks. The capital and largest city is Bratislava, and the second largest city is Košice. The official language is Slovak.

Violence is "the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy." Less conventional definitions are also used, such as the World Health Organization's definition of violence as "the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, which either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation."

History

In 1996 the NADSTF was founded.
In 2004 the NADSTF received greater powers for arresting highly dangerous criminals and especially members of organized crime groups.
In 2005 the NADSTF got the status of an official special force.

Organized crime groupings of highly centralized criminal enterprises, commonly seeking monetary profit

Organized crime is a category of transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals who intend to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for money and profit. Some criminal organizations, such as terrorist groups, are politically motivated. Sometimes criminal organizations force people to do business with them, such as when a gang extorts money from shopkeepers for "protection". Gangs may become disciplined enough to be considered organized. A criminal organization or gang can also be referred to as a mafia, mob, or crime syndicate; the network, subculture and community of criminals may be referred to as the underworld. European sociologists define the mafia as a type of organized crime group that specializes in the supply of extra-legal protection and quasi law enforcement. Gambetta's classic work on the Sicilian Mafia generates an economic study of the mafia, which exerts great influence on studies of the Russian Mafia, the Chinese Mafia, Hong Kong Triads and the Japanese Yakuza.

Special forces and special operations forces (SOF) are military units trained to conduct special operations. NATO has defined special operations as "military activities conducted by specially designated, organized, trained, and equipped forces, manned with selected personnel, using unconventional tactics, techniques, and modes of employment".

The NADSTF duties include the following of organized crime groups, working in coverage, protecting important witnesses, preparing for actions sooner than the crimes are committed and arresting highly dangerous criminals. In 2006 the NADSTF organized around 100 actions and arrested 62 armed criminals. This special unit is an intersection between investigation and SWAT in the field of counteraction to the organized crime. The NADSTF is called for action where special skills are needed in addition to the usual SWAT team work.

A witness is someone who has, who claims to have, or is thought, by someone with authority to compel testimony, to have knowledge relevant to an event or other matter of interest. In law a witness is someone who, either voluntarily or under compulsion, provides testimonial evidence, either oral or written, of what he or she knows or claims to know about the matter before some official authorized to take such testimony.

In the United States, a SWAT team is a law enforcement unit which uses specialized or military equipment and tactics. First created in the 1960s to handle riot control or violent confrontations with criminals, the number and usage of SWAT teams increased in the 1980s and 1990s during the War on Drugs and later in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks. In the United States as of 2005, SWAT teams were deployed 50,000 times every year, almost 80% of the time to serve search warrants, most often for narcotics. SWAT teams are increasingly equipped with military-type hardware and trained to deploy against threats of terrorism, for crowd control, and in situations beyond the capabilities of ordinary law enforcement, sometimes deemed "high-risk". Other countries have developed their own paramilitary police units (PPUs) which are also described as or comparable to SWAT forces.

Responsibility

Members of the NADSTF are responsible for operative and intelligence service. The NADSTF members usually have previous background experience in special raid units (PPU) or police fast response units, or other similar special response units.

Intelligence has been defined in many ways, including: the capacity for logic, understanding, self-awareness, learning, emotional knowledge, reasoning, planning, creativity, and problem solving. More generally, it can be described as the ability to perceive or infer information, and to retain it as knowledge to be applied towards adaptive behaviors within an environment or context.

The responsibility of the NADSTF also includes the organization of actions for the protection of evidence, as well as preparation of all the information necessary for the organization of actions and following criminal procedures. This makes the NADSTF a unique unit in Slovak Special Forces.

Training

The NADSTF members are trained to use special operative and intelligence techniques. The members are often sent under coverage to the criminal territory. After working on a target, raising information and evidence the members prepare an attack or arrests directly on the crime scene. The purpose of the actions is to save the evidence, not just arresting criminals, who could later be released because of the lack of evidence.

An arrest is the act of apprehending a person and taking them into custody, usually because they have been suspected of committing or planning a crime. After the person is taken into custody, they can be questioned further and/or charged. An arrest is a procedure in a criminal justice system.

A crime scene is any location that may be associated with a committed crime. Crime scenes contain physical evidence that is pertinent to a criminal investigation. This evidence is collected by crime scene investigators (CSIs) and Law enforcement. The location of a crime scene can be the place where the crime took place, or can be any area that contains evidence from the crime itself. Scenes are not only limited to a location, but can be any person, place, or object associated with the criminal behaviors that occurred.

Evidence, broadly construed, is anything presented in support of an assertion. This support may be strong or weak. The strongest type of evidence is that which provides direct proof of the truth of an assertion. At the other extreme is evidence that is merely consistent with an assertion but does not rule out other, contradictory assertions, as in circumstantial evidence.

Members of the NADSTF undergo significant tactics trainings with an accent on arresting armed criminals in difficult situations (in a car, in a street, in public places, with hostages, or explosives). Such trainings prepare the NADSTF members for all kinds of psychic ballast, which can confront them on duty. Only real ammunition is used for the practice, which takes place in real environment in buildings and cars. Thus, the members of the NADSTF are well-prepared to collect intelligence information, protect themselves and arrest highly dangerous criminals.

Equipment

Heckler & Koch MP5

External links

MINV.sk — Ministry of interior - Slovak Republic - English version

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