U.S. AGENTS CATCHING CASH AT BORDER

Officials Intercept Currency Heading South After Narcotics Go North

LAREDO - For Mexican smuggling organizations, the border is a two-way
street. Drugs, people and other contraband move north. The money moves
south. In the last three years, customs agents have seized more than $20
million in currency at the eight ports of entry from Brownsville to Del
Rio - roughly one-fifth of the value of the bulk cash seizures the agency
made nationally. While U.S. drug agents have long concentrated their efforts
on stopping drugs at the border, they're increasingly going after the money,
hitting the drug cartels in the pocketbook and providing invaluable
intelligence of the trafficking networks. And with stricter controls on bank
accounts and wire transfers, trafficking organizations are running piles of
cash into Mexico, in cars, trucks, boats, and airplanes and even strapped to
the bodies of couriers, federal officials said.

"We're seeing bigger amounts of cash coming across, and we're seeing
deeper concealment," said Hector Mancha, assistant port director for
security at Laredo. "They don't just throw it in a bag in the trunk of
their car anymore." In just one hit in February, agents at Laredo
found $1.2 million in $20s, $50s and $100s stashed in the rear quarter
panel of a 2003 Honda Accord. And Sunday, at the international bridge
in Hidalgo 150 miles downriver, three women were charged with bulk
currency smuggling when officers found $55,940 in cash hidden in
bundles underneath clothing and wrapped in white plastic bags in the
back of their 1995 Mercury Villager. They were turned over to
Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

"It's never a dull moment on the border," said Mark Pacheco, Customs
and Border Protection's assistant port director for tactical
operations at Laredo. "There are days it seems almost impossible. But
then you find that hidden compartment filled with cash, you get pretty
excited. You know that's going to hurt the bad guys."

Crimes of cash Although it's not a crime to carry any amount of cash
across the border, it is a federal offense not to declare any amount
over $10,000 or conceal it from agents as you enter or leave the
country. If the proceeds are determined to stem from illegal activity,
charges of bulk currency smuggling can lead to a prison sentence.

Customs agents, Drug Enforcement Administration agents and the FBI are
cracking down on currency smuggling as a way to attack the Mexican
trafficking organizations, some of which have roots in Dallas and
other Texas cities.

In a Jan. 11 national money laundering threat assessment, officials
cited an increase in the movement of bulk cash south across the
border. It was the first multi-agency analysis of methods that drug
traffickers use to disguise their profits.

DEA Administrator Karen Tandy, during a Senate hearing on narcotics
control last March, called tracking the money the key to controlling
the $65 billion a year trade in illegal drugs.

"To make a significant impact on the drug trade in America and around
the world, there is no strategy more effective than following the
money back to the sources of drug supply and taking away the dirty
proceeds of that trade," she said. "But our efforts to date clearly
have not successfully done the job."

Total seizures - which include all assets and can be in the form of
cash, houses, guns and vehicles - amounted to well short of $1
billion, Ms. Tandy said. "Drug traffickers pay more than that each
year in fees to launder their ill-gotten gains," she said. Officials
said there is no established formula to determine what percentage of
cash gets across the border successfully. Homeland Security's
investigation arm, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has taken a
lead role in the escalating hunt for trafficking organizations' money.
Since it was created in 2003, ICE arrests in financial investigations
increased from 1,224 that year to 1,567 in fiscal year 2005.
Nationally, ICE agents have seized more than $477 million in
trafficking assets over the last three years, with $100 million of
that in bulk currency. The seized cash goes into a fund to buy
equipment and to be given in grants to local law enforcement,
officials said.

In South Texas, ICE investigators participate in multi-agency
investigations that target the choke points for the movement of money
southward: bus stations, trucking firms and what investigators call
the money services businesses - wire transfer offices and "casas de
cambio" or currency exchange houses.

"We don't depend on one strategy," said Jerry Robinette, deputy
special agent-in-charge of the San Antonio ICE office. "We don't look
just at bulk currency but all the ways that money can move into the
pipeline south. The last stop for federal investigators is the border.
In Texas, customs officers have found currency "in car speakers,
engine manifolds, boxes of detergent and any number of false
compartments in vehicles," said Donna De La Torre, customs director of
field operations at Laredo. "The smugglers are limited only by their
creativity on how they will smuggle cash across the border," said Ms.
De La Torre. "Often, the way they brought the drugs in are used to
carry the cash back."

She said officers at ports of entry go through an eight-day school on
how to conduct outbound inspections and act as "human lie detectors."
Still, much of what they do, she said, "stems from years of experience
in studying people as they cross the bridge."

Walking cash register

Over the Christmas holidays, when cross-border traffic swells, customs
inspectors searched a 51-year-old man as he attempted to walk into Mexico,
one of the 12,000 daily pedestrians who cross at Laredo. Officers found more
than $55,000 in cash taped in packets around his body. U.S. searches of
outbound traffic are a fairly new phenomenon along the border. Sporadically,
officers will stop southbound drivers to ask if they have cash in excess of
$10,000 to declare. Who gets picked for a closer look depends on a number of
factors, Officer Pacheco said. "We look at the drivers, at their demeanor,
when we ask them questions about undeclared currency. And we look at the
vehicles to see if anything seems out of the ordinary," he said.

It's also a matter of timing. "We try to be unpredictable," he said.
"We want to keep the smugglers off-balance. But they follow us pretty
closely."

Customs officers said that spotters for the traffickers keep a close
watch on the border crossings. Armed with cellphones or two-way
radios, traffickers can signal northbound drug shipments and
southbound cash deliveries where and when border enforcement has
tightened. Once picked for secondary inspection, baggage and personal
items in the car are removed and searched. Specially trained "currency
dogs" are brought in to see if they pick up the scent of cold cash.
Officers check door panels, fenders, the trunk, under the hood and
under the car. If something triggers a deeper suspicion, they bring
out the high-tech gear, such as portable X-ray machines and
fiber-optic cameras.

"There is no formula for who smuggles the cash," Officer Pacheco said.
"We've caught young men and grandmas and mothers with kids in the car.
They drive up in old beat-up trucks and Volvo SUVs. Every case is
different." Most are mules or couriers hired by the traffickers to
drive the cash out of the United States. On rare occasions, those
carrying hidden cash may be doing so for innocent reasons.

"We'll try to mitigate the cases of people who were just trying to
take money home to Mexico," Officer Pacheco said. Those cases may be
assessed a fine for failure to declare the money and be sent on their
way." On Thursday, Laredo customs officers found a man attempting to
carry $25,000 in U.S. currency into Mexico in a duffel bag in his
truck. Although the man initially raised suspicions, officials
released him with a $1,000 fine for failure to disclose the cash. It
was believed he was carrying the money home to his family.

That, said Officer Pacheco, is an increasingly rare occurrence.