Pubdate: Sat, 05 Aug 2006
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2006 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Christopher Drew
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Hurricane+Katrina
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Marijuana)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mdma.htm (Ecstasy)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)

DRUG PROBLEMS ESCALATE AFTER HURRICANE KATRINA

SLIDELL, La. -- It was just before dawn when the pickup truck arrived 
at the two-story house in this middle-class suburb, which was hit 
hard by Hurricane Katrina. But unlike most of the trucks here now, it 
was not carrying construction supplies.

Federal agents, who were hiding in the bushes, say the truck was 
bringing 50 kilograms of cocaine, worth $5 million, from Houston to 
the murderous streets of nearby New Orleans. They also say that the 
shipment, seized on May 18, was at least five times as large as the 
typical drug delivery before the storm.

The drug trade in New Orleans is flourishing again, after its 
dealers, who evacuated to the regional drug hub of Houston, forged 
closer ties to major suppliers from the Mexican and Colombian 
cartels. They have since brought back drugs to New Orleans in far 
larger shipments than before, as the seized truck illustrates, 
essentially creating violent distribution gangs now spread over a 
much bigger area.

As a result, law enforcement officials in New Orleans and Houston are 
struggling to keep up with the changes as the region's drug trade 
merges to a greater extent than ever before, adding to the murder 
rates in both cities.

As the drug-dealing returns, its effects are proving deadly for New 
Orleans, where the police say that fights over turf for distributing 
the drugs are the main reason for a spike in killings that threatens 
the city's recovery. Even though its population is less than half of 
what it was before the storm, New Orleans recorded 22 homicides in 
July, the same number that it averaged each month in the three years 
before the hurricane.

Several poor neighborhoods in Houston, which has long been the main 
supply hub for drugs flowing across the southwest border, have been 
reeling as well. According to the Houston Police Department, 
Hurricane Katrina evacuees have been the suspects or victims in 44 
homicides there, including many tied to gang-related drug dealing. 
And 14 percent of Houston's felony narcotics arrests in the first six 
months of this year involved people displaced by the storm.

Sgt. Brian Harris, a Houston police homicide investigator, said that 
one evacuee, Ivory Harris, whose street name is B Stupid, was a 
suspect in three killings in Houston before he was arrested in March 
with a cache of drugs near New Orleans, where he was also wanted on 
murder charges. Sergeant Harris said several others, including two 
juveniles, once linked to a New Orleans gang called the Seventh Ward 
Hardheads, had been tied to 4 homicides and 28 other crimes in Houston.

Some of the crimes involved New Orleans gang members fighting one 
another over drugs and women during New Orleans music nights at 
Houston nightclubs, Sergeant Harris said, adding that he and other 
Houston officers were initially shocked by how many witnesses refused 
to cooperate.

New Orleans police officials have long complained that fears among 
witnesses about retaliation have hampered their ability to stop the 
drug trade. But to the Houston police, persuading witnesses to talk 
"was like trying to educate foreigners in the ways of the United 
States," Sergeant Harris said.

Still, the Houston police have made enough arrests for word to get 
around that it is much harder to get out of jail there than it is in 
New Orleans, where murder suspects in the city's weak court system 
have often been released after 60 days when no witnesses spoke up.

So some of the drug dealers have returned to New Orleans along with 
their customers, while others are now commuting between the two 
cities, law enforcement officials say.

Federal agents and the police in both cities have stepped up 
cooperation in tracking these movements, and they are pushing for 
more intelligence about the changes.

One of their biggest priorities is to try to choke off the supply of 
cocaine and heroin moving from Houston to New Orleans, usually in 
concealed compartments in vehicles zipping down Interstate 10.

Law enforcement officials say the vehicles -- now often pickup trucks 
that can blend in with the post-storm construction traffic -- are 
typically escorted by cars with heavily armed lookouts. Investigators 
say they suspect that a Houston man, who has been charged with 
killing a suburban New Orleans police captain in June, was one such lookout.

The cocaine truck seized here in May, which involved a mix of New 
Orleans evacuees and Mexican-Americans from Houston, is "a really 
good example" of the changes, said William J. Renton Jr., the special 
agent in charge of the New Orleans office of the federal Drug 
Enforcement Administration.

Before the storm, he said, "Whenever we'd seize drugs destined for 
the greater New Orleans area, it was mostly 5 and 10 kilograms." But 
since then, he added, "even guys who may not have been the biggest 
dope peddlers in the city went to Houston and met people who were 
involved in supplying, and new or deeper relationships developed."

Over all, the volume of drugs headed for New Orleans has probably not 
declined as sharply as the city's population, law enforcement 
authorities say, given the need to replenish stockpiles that were 
destroyed when the safe houses were ruined in the floods.

"There was probably a lot of dope washed out into Lake Pontchartrain 
during the flood," said James D. Craig, the D.E.A.'s special agent in 
charge in Houston.

And because the New Orleans dealers would still be on the hook for 
the cost of those drugs, "some of them are in debt" to the Houston 
suppliers, he said. "And some of them are probably trying to make the 
money back by saying, 'O.K., let me sell more dope.' "

Mr. Craig said the seizure of the 50 kilograms in Slidell illustrates 
how displaced New Orleans residents have teamed up with people in 
Houston to put together bigger deals.

Federal authorities said they believed the shipment originated at the 
Houston home of Joseph H. Aguirre, 40, a Mexican-American with a 
record of arrests for marijuana possession.

When the agents raided the house in Slidell, they also seized 3,500 
Ecstasy tablets, 5 pounds of high-potency marijuana and $60,000 in 
cash. And they arrested six people, including three men who had moved 
from New Orleans to Texas after the storm and who are believed to 
have driven the truck from Houston.

Records show that one of those men, and the house's owner, who was 
also arrested, had both been previously convicted on drug 
distribution charges. In Houston, Mr. Aguirre pleaded guilty last 
month to state charges involving cocaine and other drugs found in his 
apartment. The authorities say his connection to the Slidell shipment 
remains under investigation.

James Bernazzani, the F.B.I.'s special agent in charge in New 
Orleans, said Asian gang members from Canada had also recently begun 
distributing large quantities of drugs in the eastern part of the 
city, though the authorities had been beating them back.

But there has been little relief from the drug wars in the poor 
neighborhoods in central New Orleans, where the bulk of the homicides 
has occurred. And even if some of the local dealers are turning to 
new suppliers in Houston, the police say, they have no intention of 
giving up any of their own turf to newcomers.

James F. Scott, a deputy New Orleans police superintendent, said a 
lone Hispanic man had recently showed up on a Central City street 
corner to sell drugs. His body was later found there, with four 
bullet holes in his back and four in his chest. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake