Kelvin "Fungi" Derricks (right) and Carl "Monkey" Charleswell have criminal records. They have something else in common: They are agents in the V.I. Narcotics Strike Force, the territory's top drug-fighting squad.

It is an organization plagued with problems:

• Seven of the 10 current Strike Force agents have been investigated or targeted in federal sting operations.

• Two former members -- one of them the squad's acting director -- were convicted of crimes while they were on the Strike Force. One has served time in a federal prison.
• Several current members are being questioned in connection with the March 27 murder of St. Thomas Police Officer Steven Hodge. Federal law enforcement officers believe Hodge was killed because he knew who took $1 million worth of cocaine from the Justice Department's crime lab in 1993.
• Two agents are now under investigation for shaking down a St. Thomas man and robbing him at gunpoint of $460.

• The U.S. Attorney's Office now refuses to prosecute cases presented by the Strike Force unless some other agency was in on the initial investigation.

The Strike Force's reputation is so tarnished that in 1991 Police Commissioner Milton A. Frett sent a memo to police officers instructing them not to turn over any seized drugs to that force.

And the Attorney General's Office has told the Strike Force's top brass that its prosecutors will not work with agents on drug busts unless those agents allow themselves to be wired for sound.

Strike Force agents have refused, according to the AG's Office.

Unlike police and other law enforcement officials, Strike Force agents have no training program. The agency has tried to compensate for this by hiring former law enforcement officials -- but with little or no regard to credentials or integrity.

Fitzroy "Lobo" Brann, a former member of the Strike Force now living in Atlanta, recently served time for embezzling money from the agency. He blames poor training and lack of supervision for his and the Strike Force's problems.

Brann, who went from Kentucky Fried Chicken cook to Strike Force agent, says the only formal training he received -- 18 weeks at the Police Academy -- did not come until he had been on the force nearly two years.

"When I became a member of the Strike Force, they gave me a gun and put me on the streets," Brann says. "Nobody told me about things like due process or civil rights."

Brann, who was convicted in 1991 of stealing money given to him for a sting operation, believes the Strike Force should be taken out of the Governor's Office and placed under the police. He says this would provide the supervision and controls needed to keep agents in check.

"If there had been greater controls in the office I would not have found myself in a position that I did," Brann says.

"I am not making excuses for my actions, but agents on the Strike Force are pretty much on their own. They do pretty much what they please."

Gaylord Sprauve, Gov. Alexander A. Farrelly's drug policy adviser, runs the Strike Force. He says he has told the governor that it should be disbanded.

He says the police should create their own drugs unit. And he says he would recommend only two Strike Force agents for that unit.

He would not name the two.

Sprauve says he has made several attempts to clean up the Strike Force. Each time, arbitrators put the agents back on the force.

Sprauve blames the Strike Force's problems on local laws and union contracts that prevent him from firing corrupt agents.

"The system does not allow me to do what I have to do," he says.

The Strike Force was created in the 1970s to spearhead the territory's fight against drugs. The Police Department and the Attorney General's Office shared jurisdiction over it. Later, the force was put first under one department and then the other. In 1988, Farrelly placed the force under the Governor's Office.

In every instance it has been a failure.