Pubdate: Sun, 22 May 2005
Source: Salt Lake Tribune (UT)
Copyright: 2005 The Salt Lake Tribune
Contact:  http://www.sltrib.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/383
Author: Justin Hill
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

METH TRADE GEARS UP ON UTAH ROADS

'Super Labs' In Mexico Supply Most Of The Drug These Days

After a three-day stay in Las Vegas, "Linda" was hung over and wanted to go 
home.

In her rush to get back to Utah, she kept the car at 80 mph and didn't 
notice the Utah Highway Patrol trooper as she sped past Cedar City.

He pulled her over.

The trooper approached the window and asked for her driver license and the 
car's registration, then returned to his patrol car.

Adrenaline rushed through her body. Her hands were sweaty. Her heart pounded.

She tried to comfort herself, thinking, "I'm not doing anything wrong."

But Linda - who spoke with The Tribune on the condition her real name not 
be used - was doing something wrong and she knew it. She was running drugs, 
about $72,000 worth of cocaine stashed in her car.

Her trip was just one drug haul out of scores that occur on a daily basis 
along federal highways in Utah and across the nation.

An increasing amount of the cargo is methamphetamine, now considered by law 
enforcement as the nation's No. 1 drug threat.

In a 2004 survey, law enforcement agencies for the first time identified 
meth as a greater threat than cocaine, according to the report "National 
Drug Threat Assessment 2005."

South of the border: Much of that threat is coming from Mexico, where 
methamphetamine production appears to have risen sharply since 2002, 
according to the report, prepared by the National Drug Intelligence Center, 
an agency in the Justice Department.

In Utah - where meth is the narcotic of choice - Mexican traffickers employ 
vast, organized criminal operations to distribute drugs and use stretches 
of interstate to move their narcotics to points east.

"We're confident the majority of meth hitting the streets in Utah is coming 
from Mexico," said Barry Jamison, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration 
special agent in charge of Utah. "What I call it is filling the void."

Narcotics officers in Utah used to see plenty of locally cooked meth on the 
streets and hundreds of clandestine labs. In fiscal year 1999 alone, the 
DEA Metro Narcotics Task Force seized 272 meth labs here.

But in 2000, the Utah Legislature crippled local meth production with 
legislation that restricted access to methamphetamine ingredients.

"That shut down a lot of labs in the state," said Cordell Pearson, 
commander of the Central Utah Narcotics Task Force, which serves Millard, 
Sanpete, Sevier, Wayne and Piute counties. "It made it so much harder to 
get the components to make the meth."

Today, narcotics officers are seeing increasingly less locally produced 
meth, and Utah's meth is almost exclusively being supplied by Mexican drug 
organizations, Jamison said. South of the border, they are free of 
restrictions on meth-making chemicals. The drug organizations buy 
pseudoephedrine tablets in bulk from sources in China, often in shipments 
of more than one ton, law enforcement has reported, according to the drug 
intelligence center.

"Super labs": Equipped with large amounts of chemicals, the Mexican drug 
organizations cook meth in "super labs," some of which are capable of 
cooking several hundred pounds of meth at a time. A typical local lab is 
capable of producing about an ounce, possibly two, per batch.

Data from the International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, prepared 
annually by the State Department, indicate 652 kilograms - about 1,434 
pounds - was reported seized in Mexico in 2003.

"They've learned how to cook good meth," said Lt. Mike Forshee of the Utah 
County Major Crimes Task Force.

To get the meth into the hands of Utah users, the Mexican drug 
organizations have set up large criminal enterprises in the state that work 
something like this:

* The meth is smuggled across the border.

* The drugs are then taken to "stash sites" and "staging areas," which are 
primarily located in California and Arizona but can also be found in Utah 
and Las Vegas.

* Drug "mules" pick up meth in smaller forms and take the drugs to 
"satellite" distributors throughout Utah and other parts of the United States.

* The distributors sell the drugs to local dealers, who, in turn, sell to 
users.

"It would probably scare us to death if we knew how many [distributors] 
there really are," Pearson said.

Linda knows this drill all too well.

She had already been hauling drugs from Las Vegas to Utah for a year and a 
half when the trooper stopped her in Cedar City.

The trooper never found the $72,000 worth of cocaine stashed in her car. He 
simply gave her a speeding ticket and sent her on her way.

She would continue to transport drugs for more than four more years.

Linda, now 25, says she transported "pounds and pounds and kilos and kilos" 
of drugs - mostly cocaine but also meth and marijuana - from the time she 
was 16 to the time she stopped about six years later.

The runs, which Linda made every month to two months, always included 
cocaine, but "the amount of meth would get larger on each trip."

The meth, she says, came from Mexico and was smuggled to the border town of 
Nogales, Ariz., one of seven principal ports of entry through which the 
drug is brought into the United States. Runners then took the drugs to Las 
Vegas, where Linda was waiting after arriving a few days earlier with a 
vehicle filled with large sums of cash.

She would return to Utah in a different car, one filled with narcotics. 
When she arrived at home, Linda's husband would take the vehicle.

"After a while, it got so normal, you don't even think you're transporting 
drugs," says Linda, who was paid $5,000 each way for her services.

Meth thoroughfare: But, not every person hauling drugs through Utah has a 
load destined for the Beehive State.

Most of the meth is bound for the Midwest and East Coast, said Sgt. Jeff 
Chugg of the Utah Department of Public Safety Criminal Interdiction Team.

And three routes that run through Utah can take drug runners to the major 
population centers in those areas: Interstate 80 will take you to Chicago. 
I-70 runs through Denver and Kansas City en route to Maryland. And I-15 
runs from Southern California to Canada, connecting in Utah with I-80 and I-70.

Some of the Interdiction Team's major methamphetamine interceptions so far 
in 2005 have included 50 pounds en route from Phoenix to Minnesota, 10 
pounds en route from Los Angeles to Milwaukee and just more than two pounds 
en route from Salinas, Calif., to Fort Collins, Colo.

"Utah's just a way through," Pearson said.

Linda's life in the drug trade ended right where it began - with her 
husband. The man who had taken Linda when she was 15 to pick up a "package" 
was arrested a few years ago along with some associates.

Today, Linda is trying to make a fresh start. Her husband, whom she is 
divorcing, is in prison.

She no longer lives in Utah but has temporarily returned here to face a 
drug charge unrelated to her trafficking days.

The demand for people willing to transport illicit drugs remains high. The 
National Drug Intelligence Center predicts meth production in Mexico will 
continue to rise.

Which means meth could become even more common on Utah's highways and more 
widely available on Utah streets.
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MAP posted-by: Elizabeth Wehrman