U.S., CANADIAN OFFICIALS BUST DARING DRUG-SMUGGLING RING

LOS ANGELES -- Federal investigators said Thursday that they had
broken an extensive criminal network that used fast, low-flying
helicopters to smuggle a potent form of marijuana across the border
from Canada through remote Western public lands.

The smugglers sometimes returned to British Columbia with loads of
cocaine from the USA aboard the same aircraft, authorities said.

Joined by Canadian law enforcement authorities, officials with U.S.
Customs and Immigration Enforcement and other agencies said at a news
conference in Bellingham, Wash., that 45 people have been indicted in
the USA and more than 40 arrested as a result of the two-year
investigation.

They called it one of the most brazen criminal schemes ever uncovered
along the 4,000-mile U.S. border with Canada.

"They're thrill junkies," said Leigh Winchell, special agent in charge
of ICE's office of special investigations in Seattle. "It's a game of
cat and mouse to them."

He said pilots flew 50 feet over treetops and swooped through mountain
passes to deliver cargos of "B.C. Bud," a form of marijuana cultivated
by growers in British Columbia and considered highly desirable for its
potency by U.S. consumers.

U.S. and Canadian authorities seized 8,000 pounds of marijuana and
roughly 800 pounds of cocaine from the operation, they said, along
with three aircraft and $1.5 million in U.S. cash. Those involved in
the actual transporting rented out their aviation services to various
drug enterprises.

"It's really the first time we were able to discover and take down a
large-scale aerial smuggling operation between the U.S. and Canada,"
said Julie Myers, assistant secretary of Homeland Security for ICE.

There is no evidence that the smugglers brought terrorists across the
border, Myers said. But she and others said the penetration raised
broad border-security concerns.

"We look at this not as a narcotics case but an issue of national
security," Winchell said.

The pilots dropped drug shipments to contacts waiting in rugged,
remote areas of the North Cascades National Park as well as the
Okanogan and Mount Baker-Snoqualmie national forests in Washington
state. Authorities released surveillance video and photos of some of
the smugglers' drops of hundreds of pounds of cargo to contacts
waiting with pickups.

The smugglers, he said, took advantage of vast, mountainous terrain
where humans are rarely seen and travel is impossible in colder months.

Michael Kostelnik, assistant commissioner of Customs and Border
Protection, said the bust, called Operation Frozen Timber, shows that
the government cannot ignore its northern border even as national
attention focuses on securing the border with Mexico.

"The northern border -- honestly, we don't know what's happening in a
lot of these areas," he said.

John McKay, U.S. attorney for the western district of Washington, said
one of those arrested, whom he identified as Robert Kesling, has
already been sentenced to 17 years in federal prison in connection
with the case. Most of those indicted are charged with illegal
importation of controlled substances and related charges, Winchell
said.