BAYOU SHRIMP BOAT CAUGHT UP IN NET SET FOR DRUG SMUGGLERS

Skipper tells of being boarded, searched by U.S. Coast Guard personnel

BAYOU LA BATRE -- Three weeks ago, deep in the southern Gulf of Mexico, the
U.S. Coast Guard boarded a shrimp boat piloted by a local boat captain.

The sailors spent three days tearing apart the vessel while searching for
drugs that they never found, the captain said.

Now, Coast Guard officials are inviting the captain to file a complaint, and
say they might pay for the damage.

"That's really nice of them, now that we've been waylaid without cause, and
the boat I'm supposed to deliver is ripped to bits," said Jimmy Nelson, 67,
the boat's captain.

Shortly after noon Thursday, as he guided the shrimp boat Southern Pride
into this town's working bayou after a three-week voyage from Panama, Nelson
was again being followed by a Coast Guard cutter.

Soon after Nelson and his ship mate, Shirley Gunnels, had tied up at the
docks, black-clad U.S. Customs officials were searching the boat with a drug
dog. Nelson said this was his journey's second search by U.S. officials, and
this one was far less intrusive.

After the Coast Guard sailors and Customs officials left with smiles and
handshakes, Nelson pointed out the jagged drill holes the size of silver
dollars that dotted the interior plywood walls of the boat. Those had been
put there by Coast Guard sailors three weeks ago, during a three-day search
at sea, he said.

Panels and entire hardwood planks had been wrenched loose from the boat's
floors, walls and ceilings. Uneven craters were hammered into the pale walls
of the hold, where iced shrimp is usually held below decks.

"The Coast Guard did $40,000 of damage to this boat if it's a penny's worth,
and they didn't find any drugs," Nelson said. "The Coast Guard says, 'File a
complaint, and we might pay you back.' Well yeah, I'm filing a complaint!"

Nelson said the Southern Pride is owned by Tampa businessman John Sanabria.

Efforts by the Mobile Register to contact Sanabria were unsuccessful
Thursday.

The boat is licensed in Belize, but works out of a shrimping company in
Panama, Nelson said.

"Every three years, (Sanabria) has each of his boats delivered up here to be
refurbished," Nelson said. "This has been my business since I was 18 years
old, delivering boats."

Nelson said he's been boarded by the Coast Guard many times, but said this
was the first time a boat he was captaining was searched so aggressively.

"They emptied our gas tanks and walked into them. When they filled them back
up, the fuel was contaminated. They emptied our drinking water tanks,"
Nelson said. The water tanks were then refilled with salt water. Nelson said
he and crewmate Shirley Gunnels got home on 20 gallons of bottled water they
bought in Mexico because "those tanks can't be used again until they're
flushed."

After the search, the Southern Pride had engine trouble and the Coast Guard
vessel towed the boat to a boatyard in Mexico for repairs.

Coast Guard officials confirmed Thursday that Nelson's boat had recently
been boarded by the cutter Dallas, which is homeported at the Coast Guard
base in Charleston, S.C.

"We received specific information that raised our suspicions about the
Southern Pride, and it was operating in a common drug corridor from Central
America," said Lt. Buddy Dye, public affairs officer for the Coast Guard
Atlantic Area in Portsmouth, Va. Dye wouldn't elaborate on the information
they'd received.

"The vessel was boarded and searched, nothing was found aboard and it was
allowed to continue its course and speed," Dye said.

Dye said the Coast Guard and Customs officials Thursday were only following
up on that search. The Coast Guard requires no search warrant or probable
cause to do boat searches, he said.

Jolie Shifflet, a Coast Guard spokeswoman in Washington, said boardings that
fail to find drugs, and the resulting complaints, are common. She said
Nelson or the boat's owner is welcome to file a complaint.

"If we agree about the amount of the damage, and that it did occur during
the boarding, the Coast Guard will pay for the damage," Shifflet said.