SMUGGLERS GET INVENTIVE

The lengths to which smugglers will go to conceal their cargo in
trucks are bounded only by the imagination.

Canada Border Service Agency officers are seeing an increasing number
of sophisticated secret compartments, operated by keyless remote
controls, says CBSA Pacific Highway district Chief of Commercial
Operations Jan Brock.

Smugglers are also installing lead-lined compartments to foil border
x-ray systems, she said.

Investigators have found narcotics stashed in loads of chicken manure,
carrots, horse carriages, wrapped in fish skin, even hidden in fuel
truck tanks.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, information sharing among Canadian and U.S. law
enforcement agencies has improved, along with technical methods of
drug detection at the border.

Approximately half of commercial vehicles searched are flagged as
potential smugglers before they even reach the border, says Jan Brock,
Canada Border Services Agency chief of commercial operations for the
Pacific Highway District.

The other half are unloaded and searched based on the suspicions of
officers, Brock said.