Pubdate: Sun, 15 Jun 2014
Source: Honolulu Star-Advertiser (HI)
Copyright: 2014 Associated Press
Contact: 
http://www.staradvertiser.com/info/Star-Advertiser_Letter_to_the_Editor.html
Website: http://www.staradvertiser.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/5154
Author: Scott Smith, Associated Press
Page: A16
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

LIQUID METH SMUGGLED INTO U.S. FOR CONVERSION

FRESNO, CALIF. (AP) - In methamphetamine's seedy underworld, 
traffickers are disguising the drug as a liquid to smuggle it into 
the United States from Mexico.

Dissolved in a solution, it's sealed in tequila bottles or plastic 
detergent containers to fool border agents and traffic officers. Once 
deep in California's Central Valley, a national distribution hub, 
meth cooks convert it into crystals - the most sought-after form on the street.

Tough policing has driven the highly toxic super-labs south of the 
border where meth is manufactured outside the sight of U.S. law 
enforcement, but the smaller conversion labs are popping up 
domestically in neighborhoods, such as one in Fresno where a house 
exploded two years ago.

People inside the home had sealed it tightly so the telltale fumes 
didn't give them away.

"These guys, they don't have Ph.D.s in chemistry," said Sgt. Matt 
Alexander of the Fresno County Sheriff's Office. "They're focused on 
not getting caught."

Investigators say it's impossible to know how much liquid meth 
crosses the border, but agents in Central California say they have 
been seeing more of it in the past few years.

A California Highway Patrol officer in late 2012 pulled over a 
20-year-old man on Interstate 5 who said he was headed to Oregon from 
Southern California and seemed nervous. The officer found 15 bottles 
in the trunk full of dissolved meth but labeled as Mexican tequila.

The man pleaded guilty to drug trafficking and received a federal 
prison sentence of 46 months.

Three men were indicted in late 2013 and await trial after a drug 
task force found 12 gallons of liquid meth in a Fresno house along 
with 42 pounds of the drug ready for sale, four guns and 5,000 rounds 
of ammunition.

Officers raided a Madera home earlier this year, finding a lab used 
to convert liquid meth into 176 pounds of crystals with a street 
value over $1 million. Nobody was arrested, but agents said the bust 
dealt a blow to the organization behind the lab.

Mike Prado, resident agent in charge of the U.S. Department of 
Homeland Security Investigation's Fresno office, said law enforcement 
agencies are always on the lookout for creative ways cartels smuggle meth.

"We've become better at detecting certain things," Prado said. "When 
they catch on to that, they modify their methods."

The super-labs driven south to Mexico are notoriously toxic to people 
and the environment, but Prado said the small conversion labs in the 
Central Valley are more dangerous. His agents have found them in 
densely populated apartment buildings and foreclosed homes in quiet 
neighborhoods where children play on the street.

To convert the meth, cooks evaporate the liquid and use highly 
combustible chemicals such as acetone to make crystals. The fumes are 
trapped inside.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom