SMUGGLERS GET SNEAKY

Concealing cargo is limited only by the smuggler's 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 and carrots, in horse carriages, wrapped in
fish skin and even hidden in fuel-truck tanks.

In 2005, officers in the Pacific Region processed more than 1.3
million commercial vehicles and made 2,392 drug busts, seizing four
kilograms of heroin, 184 kg of cocaine, 121 kg of marijuana, 102 kg of
opium, 118,000 doses of steroids and 15,000 doses of ecstasy.