U.S. NETS 8.8 TONS OF COCAINE ON FISHING BOAT OFF MEXICO

Caps Big Drug Haul For Coast Guard

SAN DIEGO -- U.S. authorities unloaded an 8.8-ton shipment of cocaine
Sunday that was found on a rusty fishing boat off Mexico. It was the
government's fourth-largest such seizure.

A Navy destroyer with a Coast Guard law enforcement unit on board
stopped the boat, with a crew of 10 men, 250 miles west of the resort
city of Acapulco, and towed it to San Diego.

The Feb. 24 seizure capped what the Coast Guard called one of the most
productive weeks of anti-drug patrols in its history.

In six days, the Coast Guard -- from Miami to the Caribbean, and in
the Pacific from Mexico to Washington state -- seized 28,845 pounds of
cocaine, about what it captured in all of 1996.

"We've never had a week like this where our border has been assaulted
all the way from the Bahamas to Seattle," said Cmdr. Jim McPherson of
the Coast Guard.

On Sunday, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta praised the
anti-drug effort.

"Those engaged in drug trafficking are attempting to penetrate all of
our borders," he said near a Coast Guard pier, where the 8.8 tons of
cocaine in large blocks were stacked neatly on wooden pallets.

The 10 men captured along with the Belize-flagged boat, the "Forever
My Friend," will face drug smuggling charges that carry a minimum
10-year sentence and a maximum of life in prison, U.S. Attorney
Gregory Vega said. They were to appear today in federal court in San
Diego.

Eight of the men are from Nicaragua, one is from El Salvador and one
from Ukraine. The cocaine was hidden in a secret compartment, buried
under ice and fresh fish, authorities said.

Agents wearing surgical masks and gloves and protective white
jumpsuits spent Sunday morning unloading the cocaine.

The string of recent seizures reflects a general increase in the
amount of cocaine seized at sea by the Coast Guard working with the
Navy, the Customs Service, Drug Enforcement Administration and other
federal agencies.

In 1999, the Coast Guard seized a record 55 tons of cocaine, which
broke the previous high of 40.7 tons. Then in 2000, the agency
captured 66 tons.

The Coast Guard estimates it catches only a small fraction of
U.S.-bound cocaine, which is generally produced in Colombia and
shipped either through the Caribbean or via the Pacific to Mexico to
be smuggled overland into the United States.

"We've put a dent in it, but we certainly haven't cut off the flow or
driven the price of cocaine through the roof," said Capt. Joseph
Conroy, chief of the agency's law enforcement division.