POLICE FIND DRUGS IN SHIPMENTS

FedEx Hub Search Produces Results

Collinsville - Police who've been searching through packages at a FedEx hub
in Collinsville have found some major drug shipments lately, including a
stash of cocaine and four 5-gallon buckets full of marijuana. But they've
also opened a package to find only drapes and a dress.

Collinsville Police, known for their intensive efforts to catch drug
traffickers on the local interstate, are now looking for suspicious
packages passing through the FedEx hub in Collinsville. The hub is in an
industrial park near Illinois 157 and Interstate 70.

In recent weeks, judges have issued eight search warrants that allowed
Collinsville Police to open packages at the hub and look for drugs.

Police Chief Gerrit Gillespie declined to discuss specifics of the
operation, but he said it's been successful. All of the searches have
resulted in the discovery of drugs, except for the one involving the drapes
and dress and one in which an undisclosed amount of cash was found.

Gillespie said an officer goes to the FedEx building only periodically, for
less than two hours at a time. The search warrants indicate that in seven
of the eight cases, Officer Terry Wasser discovered suspicious packages
while stationed at the hub on seven different dates, beginning April 11. In
the eighth case, a FedEx employee discovered a suspicious package and
called police.

Madison County Public Defender John Rekowski, who has been a critic of
Collinsville Police tactics, said the operation sounds like a waste of
police resources.

"We're in a situation where we have a town where we could use officers on
the street. They always say they're understaffed, and now they have
somebody stationed at a FedEx office," he said. Rekowski also criticized FedEx.

"If that's FedEx's policy, to let the police search packages and read
addresses and stuff, I think I'll ship UPS," he said. Affidavits in the
search warrants offer a glimpse into how the operation works. A package can
become suspicious if it's heavily taped, if it's shipped from a drug-source
state such as Texas or California, if the shipper's address is bogus, or if
the shipping costs are high in relation to the value of the items
supposedly being shipped. Once a package is determined to be suspicious, a
drug-sniffing dog is brought in to see whether it will make an alert on the
package.

In the case of the drapes and dress, Collinsville resident Jeff Thurman
shipped the package to his mother-in-law, Denice LaSuite, in Saskatchewan,
Canada.

In an affidavit requesting the search warrant, police stated that the
package was heavily taped, was being shipped from a market area for drugs
to a source area for drugs, and that the shipper paid $48.36 to have the
package sent overnight even though the total value claimed for the items
was only $110. A drug-sniffing dog then made a positive alert on the package.

LaSuite said she's not offended that police opened her package.

"Not at all," she said. "How are you supposed to prevent people from
shipping illegal things?" LaSuite said the dog possibly alerted on the
drapes and dress because they were packaged in a Pop-Tarts box. "That's
probably what it smelled -- the food," she said.

Carla Richards, a FedEx spokesman, said it's not uncommon for FedEx -- or
its competitors -- to cooperate in police investigations.

"I don't think I can make a blanket statement as to whether this is common
or not. We don't go into great detail about our security work," Richards
said. "We certainly cooperate with authorities and we work very closely
with them -- we see it as one of our duties. As far as the privacy issue, I
would refer you back to the police."

The drugs amounts found in the searches are: 5 pounds of marijuana, 9 grams
of marijuana, 5 pounds of marijuana, 10 pounds of marijuana, 62 pounds of
marijuana in four 5-gallon buckets, 275 grams of cocaine. Prosecutors asked
that other details of the seizures not be disclosed because most of the
cases remain under investigation.