Source: THE ORLANDO SENTINEL April 4, 1997 CALENDAR; Pg. 33 Contact: SPOTLIGHT Copyright (c) 1997, Sentinel Communications Co. More federal agents, patrol boats and aircraft are on their way to Puerto Rico in an attempt to plug the pipeline funneling South American drugs to Florida and the rest of the U.S. mainland. FBI Director Louis Freeh and other federal officials pledged millions of dollars' worth of help Thursday at a congressional hearing aboard the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Gallatin in San Juan Harbor. The promise comes five years into a wave of unprecedented violence that island officials blame on warring drug gangs. "Puerto Rico has had the misfortune to become a springboard and a staging area for the deadly drug cartels," island Attorney General Jose Fuentes Agostini testified. "Let this devastation advance no further. Help us end the agony here, on America's Caribbean frontier." The federal officials warned it might take five years, however, to significantly reduce the amount of drugs reaching Puerto Rico and the rest of the United States. U.S. Rep. Bill McCollum, who chaired the hearing of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, applauded the renewed focus on stopping drugs before they reach U.S. waters. "Successful interdiction means fewer kids in San Juan, Orlando and Chicago using drugs," said McCollum, RLongwood. Colombian heroin is blamed for 123 deaths in Florida last year. With 33 in Seminole, Orange and Osceola counties, the Orlando area had the highest rate of heroin fatalities in the state. Drug smugglers have moved increasingly to Puerto Rico in recent years to evade law enforcement pressures in South Florida, the Bahamas and along the Mexican border, authorities said. Up to 12 1/2 metric tons of cocaine are shipped through the Caribbean monthly and 20 percent of that is used by Colombian cartels to pay traffickers who work for them in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. Drug seizures that would be staggering anywhere else in the United States are common in Puerto Rico. Since October, Coast Guard vessels have seized 11 tons of cocaine in local waters. U.S. Customs Service officials have seized another 16 1/2 tons of cocaine and 151 pounds of heroin in the past year. Fuentes told the subcommittee that drugs have given Puerto Rico the highest murder rate in the nation. Of the 868 people killed on the island last year, 80 percent were drugrelated, he said. The attorney general read a statement from Puerto Rican Gov. Pedro Rossello, who has been hospitalized and could not attend the hearing. To counter the drug problem and violence, island authorities are beefing up police and prison programs, in addition to setting up drug courts and joining federal task forces. Violent crimes such as robbery and rape have dropped as a result, Fuentes said. U.S. Drug Enforcement Administrator Thomas Constantine, U.S. Customs Service Commissioner George Weise and Adm. Robert Kramek, commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, joined Freeh in testifying about federal plans for the Caribbean drug war. The FBI chief said 103 FBI personnel, including more than 60 agents, and $13 million in funding will be sent to the island. The agency also will set up two more antidrug squads and join other federal and local police agencies in forming four regional teams to better attack drug smugglers and gangs on the island's coasts. Constantine announced he was increasing the number of DEA agents on the island from 28 to 53 to help combat Colombian drug syndicates and the Puerto Rican and Dominican Republic gangs they employ. He called the Colombian cartels "the most powerful organized crime syndicate the world has ever seen." Weise said 92 new customs officers, inspectors and pilots will be added in Puerto Rico. Seven new patrol boats, two helicopters and more radar and cargo Xray equipment is on the way, he said. Kramek and his staff asked for more patrol boats, aircraft, manpower and aerial infrared tracking equipment to better patrol the 311mile island coastline. But a reduction in the size of the U.S. Navy and a cut of 4,000 Coast Guard personnel forced a reduction in Caribbean patrols that opened the door to drug smugglers, he said. Kramek, who estimates the cartels make at least 760 metric tons of cocaine annually, said 58 percent enters the United States through Mexico and about 25 percent through Puerto Rico and the eastern Caribbean. Estimates on the percentage of drugs flowing through the Caribbean vary widely, however. McCollum set the amount at 40 percent last year. Kramek also said he thinks federal, state and local agencies are seizing onethird of the drugs being produced three times the estimate of many authorities. But half of the drug output would need to be intercepted to force drug prices up, he said. Cocaine prices nationwide dropped from $110 a gram in 1993 to $94 last year, McCollum noted. Drug fighters would like an overthehorizon radar planned for Puerto Rico that would spot drug planes leaving Colombia and Peru. That project has been stalled for two years, however, because of health concerns about radar raised by island residents. Freeh asked the panel to expand the federal wiretap law to allow tracking of drug dealers who use cellular phones, phone cards, cloned phones or multiple pay phones. He also urged the Puerto Rico government to lift the prohibition on local police conducting wiretaps, which is part of the island's constitution. Constantine remarked that islanders are paying a high price in the drug war living in fear of crime.