Bergen County Sheriff's Announces 'Leads Online' to Combat Drug Addiction in County

In keeping with his re-election campaign promise to continue to combat the drug addiction epidemic spreading across Bergen County and the region, Bergen County Sheriff Michael Saudino announced the implementation of Leads Online (“Leads”).

Leads Online is the nation’s largest on-line investigation system for law enforcement providing rapid electronic access to transactions from thousands of reporting businesses such as pawn shops, gold buyers, scrap metal processors and eBay listings. Individuals who commit property crimes, such as burglaries, use pawn shops and gold buyers to buy their processes and often use the profits from these transactions to fuel their drug habits. Leads Online is a web-based, secure Electronic Data Transfer service designed by business owners and local law enforcement to improve the efficiency of the transaction reporting process, and to facilitate the recovery of stolen personal property.

Business owners would register their stores in order to electronically update daily transactions and activity. Leads will then coordinate with these respective businesses that are mandated to report and train them to use their system at no additional cost. The daily transactions are then shared with the law enforcement partners.

“The goal of this program is to streamline coordination and communication between law enforcement and vendors in order to reduce the hassles of reporting and get the stolen property back to its rightful owner,” said Sheriff Saudino. “We believe that these services will provide a significant [improvement] over the current reporting process in Bergen County, saving both time and taxpayers dollars.”

Introduced Monday at a training seminar for 11 Bergen County agencies’, law enforcement partners were trained by members of Leads Online in navigating and utilizing the software. Money for the pilot program - $ 44,000 - has been paid for by the Bergen County Sheriff Office use of Forfeited funds.

The following law enforcement agencies are participating in the pilot program:

Bergen County Sheriff office

Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office

Allendale Police Department

Englewood Police Department

Fort Lee Police Department

Hackensack Police Department

Norwood Police Department

Rochelle Park Police Department

Paramus Police Department

Teaneck Police Department

Tenafly Police Department