On November 13th, Special Agent Mark Hastbacka, addressed the Rotary Club of Nashua, regarding his years in law enforcement. Special Agent Hastbacka was a Nashua Policeman from 1987 to 1997 serving the last three years in the Detective Bureau. He was Special Agent FBI Miami from 1997 to 2003 working bank robberies and kidnappings for the first two years, then international terrorism for the next four years. He worked on the IRA gun running case and a case agent for the Florida 9/11 aspect. He was a supervisory Special Agent of the South Florida Joint Terrorism Task Force from 2005 to 2012. He was deployed to Camp Cropped Iraq to supervise interrogations of detainees. He is currently Special Agent Boston Division from 2012 to present and is assigned to Bedford Residency Agency.
Agent Hastbacka was offered his current position in Bedford to train young local agents and to speak publicly about his roles and responsibilities. He discussed how New Hampshire has quite a few left and right wing groups. Many white collar crimes occur right here in Nashua. It is the second highest city in the US where stolen goods are transported to avoid taxes. Business e-mail compromise is a prominent issue here in Nashua.
FBI and Nashua Police Department have a great working relationship. They work cooperatively through task force events. The police are also deputized to avoid geographical boundary issues.
Agent Hastbacka also noted that there are summer internships available at the bureau. These are very competitive and mostly guarantee employment once internship is complete. Students must apply in October before the summer internship begins. Following a number of questions, the meeting was adjourned at 1:32 PM. Next week’s speaker is Josh Judge, WMUR weatherman.