Pubdate: Sun, 04 May 2003 Source: Sacramento Bee (CA) Copyright: 2003 The Sacramento Bee Contact: http://www.sacbee.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/376 Author: Steve Wiegand, Bee Staff Writer Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine) HARDER TIMES FOR METH MAKERS Canada, Anti-Terror Efforts Have An Impact. A new law in Canada and heightened anti-terrorism security may be putting the squeeze on methamphetamine manufacturing in the Central Valley, law enforcement officials say -- and squeezing it into neighboring countries. Federal and state drug agency sources also say there is increasing evidence of links between meth trafficking in California and the financing of Middle Eastern terrorist organizations. The Canadian law, which went into effect in January after more than a decade of discussion, requires licenses for people who import, export, buy or sell pseudoephedrine. The synthetic chemical compound is used mainly in cold and allergy medicines and is a key ingredient in the production of meth. Pseudoephedrine is heavily regulated in the United States. Before January, however, and much to the chagrin of American police, it was relatively easy to obtain in Canada. Smuggling rings based in Michigan and other parts of the Midwest regularly moved tractor-trailers full of pseudoephedrine pills from Canada into the United States and sold them to meth producers in California. A case of 75,000 pills might sell for $18,000 and produce eight pounds of meth that might sell for $48,000 wholesale. But law enforcement agents say the new law has combined with tighter border controls spurred by terrorism threats to make it tougher to smuggle the "precursor" chemicals to clandestine California labs. "Before, they were literally crossing the border with tractor-trailer loads of pseudoephedrine in tons," said Bill Ruzzamenti, a federal Drug Enforcement Administration agent who directs the nine-county Central Valley High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) program. "Now, we are seeing the Federal Express-type shipment of maybe a hundred pounds." In response, however, outlaw motorcycle gangs in British Columbia and sophisticated "poly-drug" groups in Mexico are making meth in those countries, where it is still easier to obtain the ingredients than in the United States. The meth is then smuggled into the vast U.S. market. "Ten pounds of meth is easier to get in than 100 pounds of pseudoephedrine," Ruzzamenti said. "We're seeing more and more 'finished' meth coming in from across the borders. It's too early to tell how big or how much that will take away from the market here in Central California, but I think it's a harbinger of things to come," he said. For more than a decade, California, especially the Central Valley, has been the mother lode for making meth, a drug that can be intensely addictive, trigger intense paranoia and shattering violence in its users, and cause irreparable brain damage. Because production of the drug is a relatively simple process, thousands of amateur chemists set up small operations often referred to by cops as "Beavis & Butt-head labs," a reference to the moronic cartoon characters. Those labs are dwarfed in production by "super labs" controlled by organized crime groups. Those groups are believed to be dominated by Mexican nationals who are based in California and ship meth all over the country. The combined result has been a Valley pandemic of meth-related crime and environmental messes caused by the dumping of the toxic wastes that are byproducts of meth production. Government efforts to stem the flood have escalated in the past two years, with more funding, the creation of specialized law enforcement groups and several major international sweeps of precursor smuggling rings. Three weeks ago, U.S. and Canadian drug agents culminated an 18-month investigation by arresting 67 suspects around the country and confiscating 34,000 pounds of pseudoephedrine. The busts, called "Operation Northern Star," grew out of another major sweep in January 2002 that resulted in more than 100 arrests and the seizure of 60,000 pounds of pseudoephedrine. The sweeps have had some impact on the street, officials said, driving up meth prices. They've also driven down the drug's "purity" because meth makers "step on," or dilute their product to make it stretch further. A favorite dilution agent is MSM, a substance primarily used to increase joint flexibility in horses. But the meth industry is nothing if not flexible. In the past year, Valley drug cops say, meth labs have become smaller and more streamlined. Manufacturers are compartmentalizing various stages of the production process at different sites, lessening chances of detection and of losing all of the inventory in the event of a raid. Dealers are also diversifying. "What's really different around here is that even the small-quantity sellers will have two, three, four different varieties of crank at different purity levels, which they're selling at different price ranges," said Sacramento County Sheriff's Sgt. Bob Risedorph, who is with the California Multi-Jurisdictional Methamphetamine Enforcement Team (Cal-MMET). "I guess the longer you sell something, the more variations you need to have." The post-Sept. 11 scrutiny of terrorist activity has put more of a spotlight on pseudoephedrine smuggling groups with connections to the Middle East. For years, small Central Valley markets were sources of pseudoephedrine. Law enforcement agents said some grocers, many of them with Middle Eastern roots, sold large quantities of cold pills literally out the back door to meth makers. When new state and federal laws helped crack down on the practice, according to Ed Manavian of the state Justice Department's California Anti-Terrorism Information Center, some of the same grocers formed groups with friends and relations in the Midwest to smuggle pseudoephedrine in from Canada. An analysis by the center of 74 major meth-related investigations in California in 2000 and 2001 found the primary pseudoephedrine trafficking groups were Yemeni, Jordanian or Palestinian. Many of the groups have used the same financial networks used by terrorist organizations to funnel and launder money. The networks, called "hawalahs" (Arabic for "word of mouth"), rely on oral agreements to honor each other's financial obligations without leaving a paper trail. The Office of National Drug Control Policy says it has identified at least 12 foreign terrorist organizations with links to drug trafficking. Manavian declined to say whether there is evidence the drug groups were subgroups of terrorist organizations, or whether they were just showing their political sympathies by making contributions to the cause. "What I can say is that we know that money from the illegal trafficking of drugs in California is making its way back to the Middle East to support terrorist activities," he said. That stance has been disputed by attorneys for some of those arrested in the national meth sweeps of the past two years. "There is no evidence to that; it's pure speculation," said Mark Werksman, a former federal prosecutor in Los Angeles who is representing a Chicago resident accused of conspiracy to sell pseudoephedrine to California customers. "No defendant has admitted to it in court or out of court to my knowledge." No matter how Valley meth makers manufacture the drug and where they make it, or what they do with the money, law enforcement officials say the one sad constant is the abundance of customers. "Except for marijuana, which everyone on drugs uses, meth is still the drug of choice here," said Risedorph, of the Sheriff's Department. "We still see plenty of cocaine, plenty of heroin, but meth dominates." - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom