MONTICELLO — Sheriff Mike Schiff addressed the Legislature during the Public Safety Committee on October 9 to recognize the achievements of the Gang Intelligence and Narcotics Unit. 

“I’d like to thank the Legislature for giving us a moment to acknowledge one of our units that has excelled since I have been in office,” said Schiff, who has been Sheriff of Sullivan County since 2006. After he took office, his team decided they needed a Gang Intelligence and Narcotics Unit, so they assigned officers to the task of keeping track of gang and drug activities, and to make arrests. 

“Today we’ve got two of the members, Lieutenant Peter Ramos and Detective Anthony Scow, to accept an award from our office for their excellence in the work that they do, putting themselves in harm’s way,” Schiff said. 

Other unit members were not present, Schiff said, because they do undercover work and work with confidential informants (C.I.’s), civilians who secretly provide law enforcement with information on criminal activities in exchange for leniency on their own criminal charges. 

“Recently, we allowed our people to grow beards, and believe it or not, people don’t recognize them when they go undercover,” said Schiff, who added that one undercover agent wears a wig to conceal his identity.

“I’ve been in this business for 48 years. There is no cure for these problems, you just have to keep fighting. Whether it’s mental illness, whether it’s drugs, whether it’s alcohol, crime,” Schiff said.

To provide evidence of his unit’s efforts, Schiff reported that since January of this year, the Gang Intelligence and Narcotics Unit seized an aggregate of 98.5 grams of heroin and fentanyl, 3,164.5 grams of cocaine, 9.27 grams of MDMA and ecstasy, and a total of $189,930 in cash. 

“I think they’ve done an excellent job,” Schiff said. “Many of these raids involved surveillance; they’re very time consuming. They involve going in and making buys or going in and having C.I.s make buys, putting themselves in harm’s way in a way that a regular patrolman might not.”