11/4/2014 ATF Online - Publications - General - ATF Snapshot 2006

ATF - Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and

Explosives

ATF Snapshot 2006

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) is a principal law enforcement agency within
the U.S. Department of Justice dedicated to preventing terrorism, reducing violent crime, and protecting the
nation. The men and women of ATF perform the dual responsibilities of enforcing federal criminal laws and
regulating the firearms and explosives industries. They are committed to working directly, and through
partnerships, to investigate and reduce crime involving firearms and explosives, acts of arson, and illegal

trafficking of alcohol and tobacco products.

Violent Crime Reduction

ATF’s Violent Crime Impact Teams (VCIT) initiative works with local law enforcement to identify, arrest and
prosecute the most violent criminals in designated cities. VCIT teams consisting of ATF and other federal agents,
state and local police and federal and state prosecutors have achieved significant success in reducing homicide
rates in the cities where they operate. VCIT currently is under way in 23 cities — Albuquerque, Atlanta,
Baltimore, Baton Rouge, Camden, N.J., Columbus, Ohio, Fresno, Calif., Greensboro, N.C., Hartford, Houston,
Laredo, Texas, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, New Orleans, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Richmond,
Va., Tampa, Tucson, Tulsa and Washington 4€” and ATF will expand the number to 25 by the end of FY 2006.
From the program's inception through April 6, 2006, VCIT teams made more than 9,000 federal and state arrests
and recovered more than 8,800 firearms.

In FY 2005, ATF investigated 1,270 fire and explosives incidents that had resulted in the deaths of or injuries to
352 people and property losses in excess of $470 million. ATF’s Certified Fire Investigator (CFI) Program is
unique in federal law enforcement and currently has 83 special agent CFIs. In response to explosive incidents,
ATF’s explosives enforcement officers (EEOs) have unique technical capabilities in explosives and bomb
disposal, and ATF’s special agent certified explosives specialists (SACES) are highly trained and have developed
an unmatched level of expertise in post-blast analysis. ATF has SACES based in 50 States, Puerto Rico, Guam,

Canada, Mexico and Colombia.

ATF is responsible for enforcing federal criminal laws relating to alcohol and tobacco diversion and trafficking.
ATF’s investigative efforts are directed at reducing the source of funding to criminal and terrorist organizations,
and stemming the loss of revenue to affected states and the federal government. In 2005, ATF conducted the
largest tobacco seizure in its history, measured in volume and value, and seized overall a record $7.3 million in

currency and real property valued at $2.1 million.

Protecting the Public

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At the end of FY 2005, there were some 106,000 federal firearms licensees (FFL) in the United States authorized to
conduct commerce in firearms. ATF performed more than 12,000 firearms licensee inspections. ATF’s Federal
Firearms Licensing Center processed 13,236 applications for new firearms licenses and 26,749 applications for
license renewals. Also in FY 2005, ATF industry operations investigators helped ensure the lawful storage of
explosive materials by completing more than 3,786 explosives inspections and detecting 1,821 explosives
industry public safety violations that were corrected. ATF processed 1,958 applications for new explosives
licenses and 1,426 applications to renew existing licenses.

Other ATF Resources and Assets

NIBIN — ATF provides investigative support to its state and local partners through a leadership role in the
National Integrated Ballistic Information Network (NIBIN), which allows federal, state and local law
enforcement agencies to image and compare crime gun evidence. NIBIN currently has 228 sites located
throughout the United States, including Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. During FY 2005, NIBIN

partner agencies imaged 180,729 bullets and casings into the database, resulting in 3,426 “hits,” or matches.

Gun Tracing — ATF’s Comprehensive Crime Gun Tracing Initiative is the largest operation of its kind in the
world. ATF’s National Tracing Center (NTC) processed approximately 265,800 trace requests of crime guns in
2005. The NTC stores information concerning multiple sales of firearms, suspect guns and firearms with
obliterated serial numbers and is the only repository for all records of FFLs that have gone out of business. BATS
a€” ATF’s Bomb Arson Tracking System allows state, local and other federal law enforcement agencies in the
United States to share information about bomb and arson cases and incidents. Participants receive a user ID and
password from ATF to enable law enforcement agencies to capture, store and exchange information such as the

type of incident, target, date and location.

DFuze — DFuze is an international and multilingual explosives database that ATF and other international law
enforcement agencies use to share information and intelligence on explosives incidents, devices and methods,
terrorist groups and firearms. By allowing members to share data, DFuze can effectively diminish the common
terrorist threat and serve as a potent tool in the global war on terrorism. So far, ATF, Britain, Colombia, Hong

Kong, Mexico, Northern Ireland and Singapore participate in DFuze.

U.S. Bomb Data Center — The USBDC maintains the country’s most comprehensive collection of data describing
fire and explosives related incidents. ATF is the sole agency to manage all Department of Justice databases
containing arson and explosives incident data. The USBDC contains more than 160,000 arson and explosives

incidents reports obtained from federal, state, and local fire service/law enforcement agencies.

National Response Teams (NRTs) — ATF maintains four National Response Teams consisting of highly trained
special agents, forensic chemists and professional support staff who can be deployed within 24 hours to major
explosion and fire scenes anywhere in the United States. The NRT was activated 13 times in FY 2005. Since 1978,
the team has responded to conduct crime scene analysis and cause and origin investigation of 601 fires and

explosives incidents.

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International Response Team (IRT) — The ATF International Response Team participates with the Department
of State to provide technical and investigation assistance in international explosives and fire incidents. The IRT
has responded to 26 incidents since its inception, most recently in 2005 when it was deployed to St. George’s,
Grenada, to assist in the investigation of a fire at the Grenada Boys Secondary School and a suspected device at

the Prime Minister's residence in which there were no deaths or injuries.

Explosives and Accelerant Detection Canines — There are 98 ATF-certified explosives detection canine teams
working throughout the United States. Thirty-two of these teams include ATF special agent handlers, while the
other 64 are deployed to state, local, or other federal agencies. To date, ATF has trained more than 350 explosives
detection canines in 16 countries. ATF also trains accelerant detection canines, 42 of them in FY 2005 for state and
local fire departments.

Training — ATF is in the forefront of firearms and explosives training, providing instruction to other federal,
state, local and international law enforcement agencies in the United States and around the world. Since 2001,
ATF’s National Center for Explosives Training and Research has trained almost 6,000 bomb technicians and
investigators in explosive disposal and investigative techniques. ATF provides explosives training to the new
Iraqi Police Service and at the International Law Enforcement Academies in Botswana, El Salvador, Hungary
and Thailand. In cooperation with the U.S. Army, ATF also trains Army explosives units prior to their

deployment to Iraq.

National Laboratory Services — ATF maintains three national laboratory facilities, in Maryland, Georgia and
California, where firearms examiners, fingerprint specialists and forensic chemists provide scientific expertise
and support for the agency’s investigations. The National Laboratory Center (NLC) in Maryland includes the
ATF Forensic Science Laboratory and the Fire Research Laboratory, the first facility in the world dedicated to fire

scene investigations.

ATE. gov is an official site of the U.S. Department of Justice

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