RIVER OF DRUGS: SMUGGLING SWELLS AS CROSS-BORDER TRADE RISES

McALLEN -- Domingo Cantu kneels on the hot pavement and sweeps a
long-handled mirror underneath a blue Ford pickup.

After inspecting the undercarriage, he walks around the truck slowly,
looking for anything that might indicate where the vehicle came from,
such as mud splatters or a glut of dead bugs on the windshield.

A steady glance at the driver, and Cantu waves the truck through,
confident that there are no drugs on board.

Cantu is one of the thousands of U.S. Customs Service inspectors who
patrol the international bridges between the United States and Mexico
in search of illegal drugs.

Last year, more than a half-million pounds of marijuana, cocaine,
heroin and methamphetamine were seized at border ports from El Paso to
Brownsville. Between 1996 and 2000, cocaine seizures increased by 71
percent, marijuana by 130 percent and methamphetamine by 400 percent,
according to Texas Department of Public Safety figures.

"We are processing more traffic and seizing more dope in small and
large quantities," said Rick Pauza, spokesman for U.S. Customs in Laredo.

The swelling flow of drugs into Texas, and the increased resources
needed to intercept it, appears to be unintended consequences of the
North American Free Trade Agreement, an accord designed to spur
economic exchange between the United States, Mexico and Canada.

"NAFTA has great economic potential, and the concept of free trade
seems good, but we sure did miss some things," said Michael Scott, the
chief of the Texas Department of Public Safety criminal law
enforcement division in Austin, which includes narcotics
enforcement.

In 2000, more than 48 million passenger vehicles and 3.1 million
commercial trucks entered Texas from Mexico, Scott said. As the volume
continues to increase, the level of inspection will likely decrease.

"This is a prescription for failure," Scott said.

Officials are concerned that drug smuggling could increase with the
passage of an upcoming NAFTA provision allowing U.S. and Mexican
trucks to continue across the border, rather than having to surrender
their loads at international bridges.

"It's going to be harder for us to stop the flow," said Customs
inspector Leopoldo Garza. "We'll have to be smarter."

The business of drug trafficking is an exercise in deception, and
smugglers always try to stay one step ahead of inspectors, said Roger
Maier, Customs spokesman in El Paso. That could mean hiding the drugs
in unusual places or using other people as decoys.

During the past nine months, a trend has been for smugglers to take
wives, girlfriends or children with them in the car when they attempt
to cross the border.

"They're doing whatever they can do to blend in with the rest of the
traffic," Maier said.

Smugglers also have "spotters" who look for patterns in how inspectors
do their job. When a lull is suspected, several loads might be sent
across in the hopes of making it to the other side.

At many of the state's international bridges, special teams have been
set up to inspect cars as they wait to cross into the country. Often
accompanied by drug-sniffing dogs, the agents wander through the lines
of traffic and make spot checks of vehicles that appear in any way
ususual.

Their arsenal of equipment includes scopes that can see inside a gas
tank, $10,000 gadgets that detect areas of high density in a vehicle
where drugs could be stored, brass hammers that can strike a fuel tank
without causing sparks and high-tech gamma ray machines that can scan
an entire truck in three minutes.

"We've been improving our technology quite a bit," Pauza said. "It
helps us find drugs quicker and we can pinpoint them more
accurately."

Just as crucial as high-tech gadgets is an inspector's ability to
read a situation.

"One inspector may look at 500 cars in one day," Maier said. "They get
to see things that you and I won't notice. They can detect if there's
a false floor, if someone's knees are too high or if the dashboard
might be concealing something."

Inspectors admit that the checks can be intrusive for some people, but
they say the process is necessary.

"Ninety-nine percent of the people who cross the bridge are honest,
law- abiding citizens, but we're looking for that 1 percent," said
Scott Foster, a senior inspector at the Hidalgo bridge in McAllen. "We
have to strike a happy balance between keeping the flow of traffic and
doing a thorough job of inspecting."

The methods of smuggling are varied, inspectors say. In some cases,
gas tanks are filled with drugs, then sealed off with a double wall of
steel to prevent detection. A compartment in the dashboard might be
accessible only by performing a certain sequence of actions, like
turning on the wipers and the lights at the same time.

Some auto parts stores along the border have become skilled at rigging
compartments that serve as hiding places for drugs. Finding such spots
is not easy, but on a recent afternoon, the efforts of inspector M.
Gomez bore fruit.

Gomez was walking along the line of cars waiting to cross into the
United States on the Pharr bridge just outside McAllen when he noticed
a 1982 maroon Mitsubishi Tredia with Mexican license plates. The
driver, Gomez later said, appeared nervous.

After asking the driver a few questions, Gomez opened the trunk and
noticed that the floor was covered with some sort of sealant. That was
enough to warrant a closer inspection.

After about an hour of drilling and cutting through the steel trunk
compartment, officials found hidden in the tire well several brown
packages of compressed marijuana weighing a total of 98 pounds and
carrying a street value of nearly $100,000.

The man driving the car was detained and questioned by a U.S. Customs
agent. The passenger, a 6- year-old boy who the man said was his son,
was picked up by Mexican Consulate officials and returned to Mexico.

The bust wasn't huge, but it was one more triumph in the ongoing
struggle to keep drugs out of the United States.

"We don't fool ourselves," Foster said. "We know we're not getting all
of it, but hopefully we're affecting the flow. There's a big demand
for drugs and as long as that demand is there, there will be a supply."

That supply has made its way into border courts in the form of
thousands of federal drug cases, large and small. Prosecuting those
cases requires time, money and personnel.

In the early 1990s, as the drug war began escalating and more money
was being funneled to law enforcement, counties began accepting
federal cases that involved smaller amounts of drugs. But federal
grants began to dry up, leaving counties to shoulder much of the cost
related to incarceration and prosecution.

"The feds toughened the laws and worked on the sexier issues like
smuggling," said Hidalgo County District Attorney Rene Guerra. "But
they've restricted the monies needed for the very services they talked
about. How am I going to stop the drug traffickers if I don't send
them to prison? How am I going to intimidate others?"

Guerra, like many other district attorneys along the border, has not
been accepting federal referrals for some time.

"We are backlogged and can't keep up with our own cases," he said.
"It's an unfair burden and I'm not going to play that game no matter
how much we want to be part of the team."

Help does appear to be on the way, however.

The 2002 federal budget allocates $50 million to counties in Texas,
New Mexico, Arizona and California to help detain and prosecute
suspected drug smugglers. But Guerra is skeptical that his county, or
any other, will see any of that money.

"Bush wants to have his tax breaks and spend the money on things that
are politically convenient," Guerra said. "I do what I can, but if
it's a federal crime, it should be tried in federal court. And they
have more money than I do."