RISING BORDER TRAFFIC, MORE DRUGS

Since NAFTA's passage, more narcotics are clandestinely coming in on
trucks, complicating policing along border.

LAREDO, TEXAS

In some cases, the smugglers will stuff the cocaine in metal ammunition
containers, weld them shut, and then stow the boxes in the gas tank of a
tractor-trailer truck. That makes it difficult for the dogs to sniff out.

Other traffickers will build a false ceiling in the back of their big rigs,
creating a six-inch cavity that makes a perfect lair for hundreds of pounds
of marijuana.

Most, though, are more straightforward: They simply hide the narcotics with
the other cargo, often trying only to conceal the smell with onions or some
other vegetable.

Along one of the most porous borders in the world for narcotics, the
difference between a bust and another successful shipment of cocaine can
come down to the cunning of traffickers, the nose of a dog, or a bit of
serendipity for those in law enforcement.

•The Monitor's View: US-Mexican Border in Flux •Mexicans wince at
Hollywood's sepia portrait

Each day tens of thousands of trucks now pass into the US from Mexico -
5,000 through Laredo's checkpoints alone. The traffic, which has increased
exponentially since the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement,
has given smugglers a virtually unlimited number of ways to spirit
narcotics into the US.

A decade ago, critics predicted that NAFTA would lead to increased drug
trafficking along the 1,100-mile border. Today, there's at least some
evidence that they're right: Narcotics are pouring in.

The US Customs Service, for instance, has tripled the amount of drugs it
has seized since NAFTA became a reality in 1994. Even more dramatic, the US
Border Patrol confiscated 352 percent more marijuana last year from trucks
than it did in 1999.

"Our seizures continue to go up, but that doesn't seem to be stopping or
putting the hurt on [drug traffickers]," says John Smietana Jr., who
oversees the Border Patrol's anti-smuggling unit in Laredo. "It just means
a whole lot more dope is getting though. If we catch 10 percent of it, they
see that as the price of doing business."

DRUG SNIFFING: US Customs agents at the border near Douglas, Ariz., rely
heavily on dogs to find contraband. ROBERT HARBISON - STAFF

Nowhere is the problem more pronounced than in this bustling border town,
where almost half of all goods entering the US come through. Though other
border areas complain of finding increasing amounts of drugs, Laredo is the
busiest inland port in North America - and the main portal for trafficking
by truck.

Some of the increase in seizures, of course, is simply due to having more
officers along the border. Both the Border Patrol and the Customs Service
have doubled their budgets and staffing in the past 10 years. And as more
drugs are confiscated, law-enforcement authorities have hard numbers to use
in lobbying for resources.

At the same time, the increase in narcotics trafficking in part reflects
the increased flow of everything across the border - people, cars,
commerce. Indeed, supporters of NAFTA like to point out that passage of a
free-trade law alone can't lead to more drugs. It takes someone to use them.

"The argument that NAFTA has caused an increase in drug trafficking by
making it easier to smuggle across is ignoring the fact that it's an
industry driven by demand," says J. Michael Patrick, director of the Texas
Center for Border Economic Enterprise Development at Texas A&M
International University here.

Yet those on the front lines of trying to stop the drug trade say the queue
of trucks that line up each morning at major checkpoints has complicated
their jobs - and certainly made it easier for smugglers to do theirs.

The problem falls particularly hard on state and local law-enforcement
agencies, which often don't have the resources to deal with the deluge of
drugs.

"We have one pair of night-vision glasses in our office," says Martin
Cuellar Jr., who oversees the Texas Department of Public Safety's (DPS)
narcotics unit in Laredo. "But the crooks on the opposite side of the river
have one pair each."

Mr. Cuellar shifts in his chair behind his desk in Laredo. Down the hall,
his officers are interviewing a man arrested in a 1,100-pound marijuana
bust at a nearby warehouse in March. The drugs were trucked across and then
brought to a warehouse on the US side, where another truck was scheduled to
pick them up and take them north.

Cuellar says NAFTA can be correlated to the increase in drugs coming in
because he's heard it from informants on the Mexican side. In fact, a
well-known drug cartel moved from Ciudad Juarez to Nuevo Laredo last year,
and informants say its mainstay is truck-trailers.

One and a half million trucks a year through Laredo's port of entry is
"like a gold mine to them," says Cuellar. "[Smugglers] know that you can't
stop something that's good for the economy."

Others see ominous signs as well. Michael Scott, chief of the DPS's
criminal division, says some organizations have purchased trucking
companies and maquiladoras in Mexico to provide legitimate cover for their
operations.

"It is clear that there have been serious unintended or overlooked
consequences" from NAFTA, he says.

Some, however, see the claims of increased trafficking by truck as
overblown. Tom Wade, president of the Laredo Transportation Association,
says many of the arguments are simply an attempt to keep Mexican trucks
from being able to travel freely in the US. At the moment, they're confined
to border areas.

Still, as more big rigs do come across, even within these restricted areas,
law-enforcement agencies are being forced to be more vigilant. Customs
officials say of the thousands of trucks that cross daily, they might flag
200 to be X-rayed. Of those, maybe 20 are unloaded and sorted through. In
total, fewer than 10 percent of vehicles are searched.

"This is a prescription for failure," says Mr. Scott. "Mexican
drug-trafficking organizations have exploited our collective inability to
inspect vehicles and pedestrians entering this country."

Though they can't check every trailer, Customs officials try to make up for
it with trained eyes. On this day at the World Trade Bridge in Laredo, four
Customs inspectors work the line of trucks that snakes out of sight.
They're looking for abnormalities.

They start with the cargo manifest - the paper that says who the driver is,
what the cargo is, and where it's going. They might find discrepancies there.

They ask the driver questions, checking for signs of nervousness. They scan
the exterior of the truck. A shiny screw might indicate that something has
been tampered with. Sometimes they open the back of the trailer. The type
of cargo can tip them off. So can an empty trailer.

While this is going on, "Persie" and his handler are cruising up and down
the line of trucks. The drug-sniffing dog stops at the cab, the gas tank,
the doors to the trailer. Police say dogs are the key to the whole
operation. The Border Patrol in Laredo estimates that they're responsible
for 95 percent of its seizures.

Back on the Customs dock, Mexican workers reload a trailer. Planters,
leather chairs, Mexican pottery, buckets, and metal stands are strewn
about. A search like this might take 3 or 4 hours.

No drugs are found, but the cargo was probably flagged because the X-ray
machine couldn't detect what was inside the metal buckets, says Francisco
Garcia, the World Trade Bridge's chief Customs inspector. When asked if his
crew is able to catch all the drugs coming across, he adopts the cautious
language of someone involved in a daily war. "I can say yes, and I can say
no," he says simply.

For further information:

Drug Enforcement Administration Drug fight not a bust on border Houston
Chronicle NAFTA's Influence on Drug Smuggling in Mexico

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