The son of a New Hampshire state trooper, Hamel has spent most of his 21-year career working undercover, investigating biker gangs and drugs. At 47, he actually is a suburban father who coaches and referees high school and college basketball and runs a landscaping business on the side.
Hamel's counterpart across the Piscataqua River in New Hampshire is Stephen Arnold, a stocky 45-year-old father of four with a round, bearded face, a thick brogue and a fondness for baseball hats and Marlboro Lights.
Rounding out SNIF are two detectives from York, the Beverly Hills of the coastal burgs. Cryan, 44, father of a teenage boy, has been investigating crimes in York for two decades. His colleague Mark Clifford, 40, is a former golf pro who came out of a patrolman's uniform several years ago as York's first full-time narcotics detective.
The members of SNIF all answer to their own chiefs, but they function as an independent unit on the ground. Keeping in contact by cellphone, text message and two-way radio, they share information and informants and take turns making undercover buys and running surveillance.
They also work with the Drug Enforcement Administration and follow cases where they lead, roaming three states and towns as far south as Lawrence, Mass., the source for most of the narcotics in New Hampshire and Maine. In Lawrence, the drug trade is run by Dominican dealers with ties to Mexican cartels.
SNIF's efforts have resulted in tens of thousands of dollars in confiscated homes, cars and cash, which is divvied up among the departments to help fund drug enforcement efforts.
Along the way, Hamel and Arnold have been teaching their York colleagues the dangerous art of undercover drug work.
"No one teaches you to be a street narc in the academy," Hamel said. "And most guys look at the work and say, 'Not for me, dude.' "
As they waited for an informant to arrange an undercover buy recently, the veterans teased Clifford about a York heroin addict he had turned into an informant a few months earlier -- an informant who was robbing banks to feed his habit even as he helped the police.
Both York detectives have picked up valuable lessons along the way, including the importance of a plausible cover identity.
"If you're 130 pounds soaking wet and have smooth hands, like Cliff here, you can't pretend to be a bricklayer," Hamel said. "You have to look the part."
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