DRUG LORDS PREY ON TRUCKING INDUSTRY

Hotline Allows Insiders To Anonymously Tip Off Border Cops

A new toll-free hotline will allow truckers with intimate knowledge of
cross-border drug smuggling to tip off police.

The number, 1-888-598-####, features services in English and Punjabi.
It officially came online yesterday and will be evaluated after three
months.

In a Province exclusive, Cpl. Norm Massie of the RCMP E Division
Border Integrity Unit said the hotline is designed to allow truckers
who know of compromised colleagues, and drivers who may themselves
have been approached to run drugs, to call anonymously.

"We know that the trucking industry is being preyed on," Massie said,
noting that police have tracked a surge in truck-based drug smuggling
since several high-profile busts of airborne trafficking operations in
2006. "Organized crime looks for opportunities. [Trucking] appears to
be their next opportunity."

Should a driver heading to the border with a load of narcotics have an
attack of conscience, Massie said they too can call for help.

In 2004, customs officers seized 269 kilograms of cocaine in the
Pacific Highway District, which includes five border crossing points
from Boundary Bay to Huntingdon. The total dropped to 179 kg in 2005,
then jumped to 261.5 kg in the first six months of 2006. (The total
for 2006 is not yet available.) Overall, the number of vehicle-based
drug seizures in the Pacific Region has jumped 51 per cent since 2001.

"We've seen an increase in the number of narcotics seizures,
particularly cocaine, from about 2003 on, both in terms of the numbers
[of vehicles busted] and the quantity [of drugs in each]," said Canada
Border Services Agency Pacific District commercial operations Chief
Jan Brock.

"Our agency considers land border crossing to be extremely high-risk,"
she said.

The key concern for law enforcement is not necessarily large trucking
companies, but smaller businesses and owner-operators who are more
vulnerable to promises of big money for very little effort.

"When they get caught, and they will get caught, then the organized
crime groups [who recruited them] are nowhere to be found. You are
hung out to dry," he said. "Your load didn't get through -- you better
make sure you're going to jail because someone is going to come
looking. You just lost organized crime $5 million. I can't see anyone
being happy about that. It's not just you; you're exposing your family."

B.C.Trucking Association chair Dietmar Krause agreed that the problem
appears to be centred among smaller operators.

Krause also said the call-in number will be a useful tool.

At the Pacific Highway crossing, Brock says, smugglers are becoming
increasingly sophisticated in their methods.

In a trailer parked behind the CBSA headquarters, Brock noted a secret
compartment hiding four steel drawers under the false floor. The door
to the compartment could only be opened with a keyless remote control.

Officers who pried the door open and found five kg of cocaine stashed
in the drawers. In that case, the smugglers had "hand-bombed" a
shipment of ladders into the trailer, hoping the deliberately
disorganized tangle of goods would dissuade inspectors from delving
too deeply, Brock said.