Pubdate: Sat, 09 Feb 2002
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2002 Los Angeles Times
Contact:  http://www.latimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Author: Richard A. Serrano, Times Staff Writer

DRUG ARRESTS SOAR AT BORDER

Security: Mexican Smugglers Are Testing The Beefed-Up, Post-Sept. 11 U.S. 
Law Enforcement Presence. Customs Officials Report Seizures Have Since Jumped.

WASHINGTON -- Seizures of illegal drugs along the nation's southwest border 
have skyrocketed in recent months, as Mexican smugglers run up against the 
concentrated effort of U.S. law enforcement officials to police the region 
after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Drug seizures from South Texas to Southern California have climbed beyond 
pre-Sept. 11 levels, rebounding from the sharp decline seen in the weeks 
immediately after the assault on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, 
officials said.

That development comes as arrests of undocumented workers have fallen 
dramatically and continue to decline--in some areas well over 50%. 
Officials said it may portend a dramatic clash between increasingly 
emboldened smugglers and shored-up police and military forces. "The 
smugglers probably believed the high security would be short-lived," said 
Roger Maier, a U.S. Customs Service official in El Paso. "And when that 
didn't happen, they still had to move their product. And for us, the more 
we looked, the more we were going to find. And we're looking harder than we 
ever have. Now we have started catching them."

In Southern California, the amount of cocaine seized by Customs Service 
agents has doubled since Sept. 11, compared with the same period a year 
earlier, while the amount of heroin seized has increased twentyfold.

Nationwide, customs officials report that heroin seizures since Sept. 11 
have jumped more than 135% compared with a year earlier. Cocaine is up 
nearly 60% and marijuana nearly 19%. The amount of illegal pills such as 
Ecstasy and steroids that has been seized is up more than 955%.

Along the border, where the most aggressive effort has been underway to 
turn back illegal drug smuggling and other activities since Sept. 11, the 
effort has had some surprising results.

The decline in arrests of undocumented workers, for instance, is a 
phenomenon that officials attribute to Mexican migrants becoming 
increasingly wary of entering the United States after the terrorist attacks 
and the roundup of illegal immigrants.

By contrast, smuggling of illegal drugs, which fell initially, is now back 
in full swing, even as the Bush administration plans to further strengthen 
the police presence along the 2,000-mile-long border with National Guard 
and U.S. military troops.

The main thrust of the heightened police presence has been to make sure no 
terrorists get through, with the side benefit of interdicting other 
criminals, such as drug dealers.

Dean Boyd, a spokesman at Customs Service headquarters in Washington, said 
Friday that law enforcement officials are amazed that drug dealers keep 
trying to push their way into the United States in the face of such a 
daunting police barricade.

"We're still at the highest level of alert, and we will continue to be so 
for the foreseeable future," he said. "Our people are working increasingly 
long hours and a lot of overtime."

Federal officials say they have received numerous reports of drug smugglers 
who stockpiled their inventories on the Mexico side of the border, then 
became increasingly anxious when the beefed-up police patrols did not leave 
the border towns in the weeks after Sept. 11.

By October, the smugglers were slowly beginning to once again move their 
drugs across the line. The pace continues to accelerate.

"At first, they saw our enhanced security and decided to wait and see if 
things settled down, or they chose some alternate routes," Boyd said.

Marijuana smuggling is a prime example.

The increase in seizures occurred "during the middle of the marijuana 
harvest season in Mexico last fall," he said. "Huge quantities normally 
come up from central to northern Mexico and, after a while, if that 
marijuana piles up just south of the border, it becomes a hazard for a 
trafficker.

"If I have tons and tons waiting at the border, I'm at a huge risk. My dope 
might get stolen by rival factions. The Mexican police might find me. The 
marijuana might rot," Boyd said. "And I have a payroll to meet. I've got to 
get my product to market."

Since Sept. 11, waiting periods to enter the U.S. have stretched to as long 
as three hours, because "every vehicle, car, truck and motorcycle gets 
inspected," said Maier, the El Paso customs official. "Drivers are getting 
out of their cars to open the trunk, to open the hood."

Life on the border has been transformed, and the smugglers from Mexico 
could not help but notice.

"We operate kind of in a fishbowl down here. A lot of what we do is very 
visible to the traveling public and the smugglers," Maier said. "They watch 
what we do and try to circumvent what we do. That's their job, to move 
drugs, and they study us as closely as they can."

Jayson Ahern, customs' director of field operations in San Diego, said the 
"level one alert status" is on indefinitely. "Anti-terrorism remains our 
top priority, but this increased scrutiny will continue to hamper smugglers."

Tom Lindenmuth, a federal public defender in McAllen, Texas, said he is 
seeing a rash of cases involving smaller amounts of drugs. "We are getting 
more marijuana. Not big amounts, generally under 50 kilos. It's back to 
coming in like crazy. And now we're [arresting] a lot of women for 
smuggling drugs."

U.S. District Judge Filemon Vela in Brownsville, Texas, said that in South 
Texas the situation is the same as before Sept. 11.

"They just caught a guy a few blocks away from where I am with many 
hundreds of pounds of cocaine," he said, noting that the terrorist attacks 
apparently have not dampened America's hunger for drugs.

"We're still the champion consumer of the world," he said.
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