INVESTIGATORS TIE METH EXPLOSION TO DEALERS FROM MEXICO

Hastings, Neb. - Small methamphetamine labs in houses and apartments may
get most of the attention. But they produce only a trickle of the meth in
Nebraska, law enforcement agents say.

Most of the drug - 90 percent, according to one investigator - comes from
Mexico and is distributed through immigrant communities around the state's
meatpacking plants.

Law enforcement officials say that only a few immigrants distribute the
drug. But these dealers have been able to blend into Nebraska's growing
Hispanic population, particularly around the state's rural meatpacking
plants, officials say. According to U.S. Census Bureau statistics, the
number of Hispanics living in Nebraska swelled 108 percent in 1990s to
about 77,000.

"Not every Hispanic that's here is a bad person," said Glenn Kemp, a
federal drug investigator who works in Grand Island, Hastings and Kearney.
"But every time we work something with supply routes, it comes back to
Mexican nationals."

Meatpacking industry spokespeople say that meth is no more prevalent in
their industry than in others and that they do not tolerate drug use in the
workplace. Nebraska Crime Commission statistics do not list the number of
Hispanics arrested.

But many law enforcement agents say criminals in Mexican distribution rings
who would have stuck out in rural Nebraska 10 years ago now go unnoticed in
Hispanic population centers. Meth distribution has become especially
prevalent around Grand Island and South Sioux City, officials say.

"The packing-plant industry has really enhanced the opportunity for the
criminal Mexican nationals to infiltrate peaceful, law-abiding Mexican
communities," said Nancy Martinez, coordinator of the Midwest High
Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, a federally funded effort formed in 1996
specifically to combat meth.

Mexicans are not the first to profit from importing drugs to the Midlands.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, authorities blamed urban gangs with ties
to California for spreading crack cocaine. Although the crack epidemic was
focused mainly in Omaha, there are similarities with today's meth problems.

In Hastings, Kemp opens a lockbox stuffed full of meth - white, brown,
pink, tan. Some is in big bags, some in tiny jewelry bags. Drug
investigators track the drug's source by color, shape and ingredients. Kemp
said Mexican meth, which makes up about 90 percent of Nebraska's supply, is
commonly made with red phosphorus. In addition, he said, certain
ingredients used to make meth come from Mexico, where there is little
regulatory oversight.

Small local labs, which agents often call "Beavis and Butt-Head labs" after
the popular animated television show, struggle to make enough meth to sell
widely, Kemp said.

Recent high-profile meth busts, such as a cold medicine pipeline that the
Drug Enforcement Administration said supplied rings run by Mexican
nationals in the United States, support law enforcement assertions.

In June, Midlands law enforcement agents testified at a congressional
hearing in Sioux City, Iowa, that Mexican gangs send meth to Iowa, Nebraska
and South Dakota through California. As much as 85 percent of Iowa's meth
comes from outside the state, one official said at the hearing. Sioux
City's police chief said undocumented workers account for about 60 percent
of his meth arrests.

Others disagree. Yolanda Chavez Nuncio, a member and a former chairwoman of
Nebraska's Mexican-American Commission, doubts the majority of Nebraska's
meth comes from her community.

"I think the initial reaction when there are packing plants might be that
there's a lot of meth," the Grand Island resident said. "But many of the
people coming to work in the packing plants are families, as opposed to 15
years ago when we were seeing lots of single men. It's not as much a
problem among families."

Nuncio does not question that meth is in rural Nebraska's Hispanic
communities. But she said it's unfair to single out undocumented workers.

"It is not acceptable in our community to use, buy and sell drugs any more
than it is in the Anglo community," she said.

Kemp said cultural differences present one of the biggest challenges in
combating meth - how to infiltrate Mexican distribution rings with a mostly
white corps of officers, deputies and troopers. Of the Nebraska State
Patrol's 460 troopers, for example, only eight are Hispanic.

"The Hispanic culture is so much different from ours. They just don't talk
about other people who are involved," Kemp said.

Investigators, he said, have little trouble cracking the lower levels of
the Mexican meth trade.

"Probably even in this shirt," he said pulling at his Nebraska Law
Enforcement Intelligence Network logo, "we could walk into a bar in Grand
Island and purchase without any problem. Even if we're the only white
people in there, in a Mexican bar."

High-level Hispanic agents are another thing, and investigators consider
them as "good as gold."

That's why supervisor Tom DeRouchey and five special Immigration and
Naturalization Service agents have a Grand Island office. That office and
one in North Platte help drug investigators interrogate suspects and
provide the agents with INS deportation records. The penalty for returning
to the United States after deportation is often more than for drug
offenses, he said.