CUSTOMS WAGE WAR BY SEA

TEN thousand international flights, 840,000 international airline
passengers, 5000 ships, 300,000 sea freight containers and 6650km of coastline.

Each year the 386 Customs officers who are based in WA battle huge odds to
stop the flow of illegal drugs into the State.

Most of the significant drug seizures come from joint operations between
Customs and other law enforcement agencies, primarily Australian Federal
Police.

Last month's operation which saw one tonne of cocaine worth $250 million
seized at Shark Bay from South American drug lords was an example of this
cooperative approach.

It also brought into focus that WA's battle against international drug
lords is mostly waged on the water, not in airports.

Most of the 21.9kg of cannabis, 719.6kg of cocaine and 269kg of heroin
which was seized by Customs officers in the 1999-2000 financial year
arrived on ships, according to Customs"September 2000 report.

Ecstasy is the exception. Most of the 144.1kg seized in 1999-2000 was in
airport luggage or strapped to airline passengers or crew.

In a bid to have a better idea of what was happening in WA's main ports
senior Customs officers set up a multi-million-dollar closed-circuit
television system.

Now officers who are based at Customs House in Fremantle can monitor ports
at Esperance, Albany, Bunbury, Kwinana, Fremantle, Geraldton, Dampier, Port
Walcott and Port Hedland 24 hours a day.

Customs officers know they cannot search every single ship that berths in
WA so a program of risk management was put in place to make sure high-risk
ships are searched thoroughly. But even then the task is daunting.

Department of Transport spokesman Steve Worner said 5126 ships arrived in
WA ports in the 1999-2000 financial year.

Between Fremantle, Wyndham and Broome 301,938 containers were offloaded.
More than 300,000 of these were at Fremantle.

After Fremantle, Dampier is the busiest port in WA. In the first nine
months of the last financial year, 794 ships docked at the port. During the
same period, 471 ships arrived at Port Hedland.

Each of these ships is a possible drug courier service. And drug runners
are becoming ever more inventive.

One Customs officer said a South American ship which docked recently in
South Africa had cocaine concealed in its hull, not in the containers it
was carrying. The 386 staff members based in WA represent 9 per cent of
Australia's 4165 Customs personnel.Small team takes on big hunt for hidden
cargoMOST of the cargo ships which dock at Fremantle weigh between 20,000
tonnes and 40,000 tonnes and carry up to 1500 containers.

Yesterday, The West Australian watched a team of Customs officers search
one such ship, the 35,000-tonne Panama-registered cargo carrier MSC Claudia.

The MSC Claudia last came under the attention of WA law enforcers in 1999,
when it was stormed by 80 police trying to find two men wanted over a bikie
shooting in Adelaide. It took 18 hours for police to be sure the ship was
clear of bikie stowaways.

Yesterday, a handful of Customs officers began the near-impossible task of
making sure the MSC Claudia was clear of illegal drugs.

New technology which allows swabs taken from various parts of a ship to be
analysed for traces of narcotics makes the task of searching ships easier.

Some of the X-ray machines capable of scanning entire cargo containers
which are used in Melbourne and Sydney may be destined for Perth.

And drug detection dogs like 2 1/2,*-year-old labrador Pepper, one of six
dogs used by Customs, narrow a search area.

But searching a ship the size of the MSC Claudia - which is so big there
are more than a dozen flights of stairs between the bridge and the bottom
of the ship - is difficult. Every nook and cranny must be searched.

About 15 ships are searched each month at Fremantle.Peril of Mr Bigs 'like
a hostile nation'ORGANISED crime posed an increasing danger to Australian
society and should be regarded as a hostile foreign nation, the National
Crime Authority has warned.

NCA chairman Gary Crooke QC said the time was ripe for government
departments and private enterprise to help struggling law enforcement
bodies in their fight against criminal Mr Bigs.

He said the forces of globalisation left every country, including
Australia, vulnerable to exploitation by highly-organised and well-funded
crime syndicates.

The same improvements in transport, telecommunications and computer
technology which promoted international trade and commerce also allowed
these syndicates to operate anywhere in the world. They also made it easier
for them to elude detection.

Criminals could frustrate police investigations with their use of stolen
mobile phones, multiple Subscriber Identity Module cards obtained under
false names and encrypted electronic mail.

And the Internet facilitated money laundering.

In a report released this week, Mr Crooke said police simply could not rise
to meet these new challenges.

Further, Australia's Federal system created legal gaps between States,
Territories and the Commonwealth which criminals could use to their
advantage, he said.

"Surprising as it may seem in this centenary year of Federation, a warrant
under State legislation authorising the use of a listening device holds
good only while the criminal under investigation is within the borders of
the issuing State."

Mr Crooke complained that organised crime did not get the attention at the
highest government echelons as other national security issues such as defence.