Narcotics Suppression Squad

The unit, abbreviated NSS, sits beneath the Drug Enforcement Agency and was formed to carry out specialized missions against the narcotics trade. Its operators were trained for high-intensity work, giving the DEA a strike capability that reached well past ordinary policing.

Under agency director Niimi, the squad was diverted from its stated purpose into an armed enforcement wing. Acting on orders passed through Gayle Yasuoka, its members opened fire on the Sunflower Society and stood by as the group's unarmed staff were killed. The NSS was also the instrument used to quietly murder Doctor Hisashi Imakurusu.

Once the scheme unraveled, the surviving operators fled into hiding and altered their looks. They then plotted to cripple Section 9, sabotaging Motoko while she underwent a prosthetic body transfer and engineering the arrest of Aramaki after dosing him with drugs. Both were pulled out of danger before the plan succeeded, and it is believed that most of the squad was either killed or taken into custody following Imakurusu's death.

Command of the parent agency rested with Niimi, its director, while Gayle Yasuoka relayed the orders that sent the squad against the Sunflower Society. The rank-and-file operators are unnamed, defined instead by their shift from sanctioned drug enforcers into an off-the-books assassination team.