Pubdate: Thu, 11 Feb 2016
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2016 The New York Times Company
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Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Ron Nixon

TRAFFICKERS CON SENIORS TO SMUGGLE, OFFICIALS SAY

WASHINGTON - In what law enforcement officials describe as a new 
front in international smuggling, global traffickers and cartels are 
increasingly turning to a new source for couriers to smuggle drugs 
across international borders: vulnerable American older adults.

The traffickers deceive seniors with promises of prizes or 
relationships, setting them up to unknowingly try to carry luggage 
filled with cocaine or other items through customs, hoping they will 
not arouse suspicions. Such cases have been seen in nearly a dozen 
foreign countries, officials say. Details of the smuggling and a 
counteroperation that officials called Operation Cocoon were 
disclosed by the Department of Homeland Security during a hearing on 
Wednesday before the Senate Special Committee on Aging.

Officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Customs 
and Border Protection agency are working with international law 
enforcement agencies to combat the growing deception, officials said. 
The Homeland Security investigation into drug smuggling that targeted 
older people began in 2013.

Alan Scott Brown, the acting assistant director for investigative 
programs at Homeland Security Investigations, a division of 
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the agency had managed to 
save some seniors - including a 97-year-old man - from becoming drug 
couriers by stopping them before they could leave the country.

But he added that some of the people, after years or months of 
prodding, were so trusting of members of the drug gangs that "they 
don't believe the truth when confronted."

The two agencies say they have worked with foreign counterparts to 
intercept couriers, seizing a total of 272 kilograms of 
methamphetamine, 209 kilograms of cocaine, four kilograms of ecstasy 
and 11 kilograms of heroin. About 116 unsuspecting seniors - the 
oldest person taken into custody was 87 - have been arrested by 
foreign governments in smuggling cases, including in New Zealand, 
Australia, Brazil, India, Fiji and Japan. Eighty-three United States 
citizens have been arrested abroad since 2013 and identified by 
Immigration and Customs Enforcement as victims of this scheme through 
Operation Cocoon.

"The criminals who set this chain of events into motion are cruel, 
but very, very clever," said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of 
Maine, who is the chairwoman of the Senate Special Committee on Aging.

J. Bryon Martin, 77, a retired pastor from Maine, is one of many 
American seniors serving time in a foreign prison after being accused 
of drug smuggling.

Andrew Martin, his son, testified at the hearing that his father was 
arrested in July after being caught at an airport in Madrid with 
nearly two kilograms of cocaine worth about $450,000.

The elder Mr. Martin had met a person online who he thought was a 
young woman named "Joy" and struck up a relationship that lasted for 
five years, his son said.

She claimed to be from a wealthy North African family and said she 
needed Mr. Martin's help in obtaining real estate documents for 
property her family owned in Peru. The woman asked him to go to South 
America to get the documents and then bring them to her in London.

While in Peru, Mr. Martin was given two sealed packages and a plane 
ticket to London with a layover in Madrid. He was arrested after 
security personnel at the airport in Spain noticed the packages and 
opened them. Mr. Martin, who his son said was in poor health, is 
serving a six-year sentence for drug smuggling.

"Before this conviction, my dad had never been charged with even a 
misdemeanor," Andrew Martin said.

Officials say they do not know precisely how many older adults have 
been deceived into becoming drug couriers. They say it is also very 
hard to catch the criminals behind the deception, because most 
operate outside the United States and have become highly 
sophisticated in disguising their activities.
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