A dragnet timed to coincide with National Victims Rights Week nabbed more than 9,000 fugitives, including 54 in North Dakota.

Operation Falcon II, an interagency operation held April 17-23, focused on the apprehension of violent sex offenders.

"The target we shot for this year was sex offenders … but you always run into other cases," said Deputy John Werner of the U.S. Marshals Service office in Bismarck. "The main thing this shows is that, through an effort of interagency cooperation, we can get a lot more done on a task force-type situation because, No. 1, there are more resources. If we had a full-time fugitive squad in the area, we could make a difference."

The Marshals Service orchestrated the operation and worked in Bismarck with the North Dakota Parole and Probation Office, U.S. Parole and Probation, the FBI and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

A similar operation last year netted 26 arrests statewide, Werner said. He said there was more time to prepare for this year's operation, which allowed the agencies to get the warrants ready.

"In the Marshals Service, fugitives are kind of our thing," Werner said. "We hope people in the community realize that we're willing to go out there and make the effort to find these fugitives."

Werner said many more arrests could be made if time and resources allowed it.

"It takes a lot of coordination,"he said. "Last week, I would basically describe it as being hell week. We have the normal stuff we do, and most of (Operation Falcon) was done after-hours. It was a special operation, where we were working 16-, 17-hour days."

Nationally, more than 1,100 people wanted for violent sex crimes were among the 9,037 arrests. There were 462 fugitives arrested for violent sex crimes and 311 arrested for other sex crimes, according to the Marshals Service.

In North Dakota, arrests were made in Bismarck, Mandan, Minot, Jamestown, Fargo and elsewhere. The Marshals Service said Falcon was the largest violent sex offender fugitive apprehension operation in history.

Other national data from the operation:

3 Unregistered sex offenders arrested - 783

3 Guns seized - 111

3 Drug seizures - 139

3 Documented gang members arrested - 163

3 Homicide warrants cleared - 87

3 Narcotics/OCDETF cases cleared - 2,941