Felons wanted on 30 outstanding warrants in Lancaster County landed in jail over the last week, caught in the net of a nationwide U.S. Marshals Service project.

Calling it the largest fugitive apprehension project ever, marshals enlisted the help of 25 federal, 206 state, 366 police and 363 county sheriff's agencies to arrest people wanted on felony federal and state warrants.Last week, authorities arrested 10,340 felons wanted on 13,851 warrants.

Dubbed Operation Falcon, the project coincided with National Crime Victims Rights Week, according to the U.S. Marshals Service.

The Lancaster County Sheriff's Office was among five Nebraska agencies that participated, said U.S. Marshals' Deputy Chief John Cleveland.

Involving agencies like Lancaster County was easy because they already work regularly with the U.S. Marshals as part of a joint task force.

Sheriff Terry Wagner said the his office began working with the federal marshals last year.

One deputy is assigned to the task force and works full time with the marshals to arrest people on felony warrants.

Before joining the task force, the sheriff's office didn't have the manpower to assign a deputy specifically to search for people wanted on warrants, Wagner said.

Instead, if deputies had time, they would search or arrest people they contacted as part of other investigations.

Since Lancaster County joined the task force in May 2004, deputies have cleared 379 felony warrants with arrests.

The month before the task force started, Wagner said, his office had cleared five felony warrants. Prior to that, the sheriff's office didn't track the number of warrants cleared.

Wagner said working with the U.S. Marshals has resulted in not only more warrants being cleared but  finding people wanted of more serious crimes.

During the U.S. Marshals' Operation Falcon April 4-10, authorities nationwide seized 243 guns, made 201 drug seizures, arrested 154 gang members, cleared 162 homicides and arrested 553 sex offenders.

Reach Margaret Reist at 473-7226 or mreist@journalstar.com