The FBI’s Miami office and multiple South Florida law enforcement agencies announced Wednesday they arrested 65 people and seized 21 firearms as part of an investigation to round up the region’s most dangerous suspected criminals.
Dubbed “Operation Viper, the multi-agency operation, which ran from mid-May through late June, focused on arresting the region's most dangerous alleged criminals across Miami Beach, Miami-Dade County, Fort Lauderdale, Miramar, Miami Gardens, Pembroke Pines, and the City of Miami.
At Wednesday’s press conference at the FBI’s Miramar office, law enforcement authorities credited the success of the investigation as a direct result of the collaboration between federal and local law enforcement partners.
Operation Viper is part of a nationwide initiative designed by the FBI to help support local law enforcement to target their most violent offenders.
The Miami Division was the first field office in the country to become involved in the operation, integrating the FBI’s Violent Crime Rapid Deployment Team (RDT) with existing local task forces.
Brett Skiles, Special Agent in charge of FBI’s Miami Field Office, led the press conference and emphasized the importance of the combined RDT force.
“The RDT was integrated with our already existing and very active South Florida violent crime and fugitive task force each day,” Skiles said.
Each day, a team of 35 officials made up of FBI agents, task force officers, and local law enforcement gathered to plan, coordinate, and execute arrests.
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Skiles said the FBI worked very closely with the local departments to develop their list of key targets.
“We took the information from the local partners and police departments and developed a list of suspects to target or violent offenders and make cases on them,” Skiles said.
From the recovered 21 firearms, two were fully automatic weapons modified with illegal “auto sears.”
Operation Viper will now move on to another city in the U.S., which Skiles declined to name due to operational security.
Although the RDT has departed Miami, Skiles said efforts to combat violent crimes will continue.
“We're not taking our foot off the gas…our priority on violent crime continues as we shift resources internally and towards combating violent crime with additional operations planned in the coming months,” Skiles said.
From the recovered 21 firearms, two were fully automatic weapons modified with illegal “sears.”
Special Agent Peter Ganzert, firearms instructor with the FBI’s C1 Violent Crimes and Fugitive task force, gave those in attendance a demonstration on how illegal modifications known as “sears” or “glock switches” work.
He showed how the modifiers convert semi-automatic pistols into fully automatic weapons, capable of firing up to double the rounds per minute compared to the FBI’s Thompson submachine gun.
“So the firearm just continues to fire, with one press of the trigger, taking it from a semi-automatic firearm where one round is fired with each press of the trigger to being a weapon that’s capable of firing about 1200 per minute.”
Ganzert showed videos comparing this to the FBI’s submachine gun, which fires at 600 rounds per minute. He explained these devices are often sourced through black markets, online platforms, or even 3D-printed.
Many of the police officers present expressed their satisfaction with the operation.
Fort Lauderdale Police Chief William Schultz said that his department led with 16 arrests in their region, and Miami Police Chief Manuel Morales said his department made 10 arrests.
Schultz said: "One case involves suspects from a national FBI alert, Romanian Nationals engaged in fraud and forgery in our city, successfully targeted and taken into custody, thanks to this real-time collaboration."
Morales sent a stern message to offenders, saying, "To the criminals out there… if you're even thinking about committing a crime, we will identify you, we will find you, and we will put you in jail."
