U.S. SWOOPS ON POT SMUGGLER

RCMP Tip Has Boat Tracked From Island To Marina On Olympic Peninsula

U.S. federal agents, acting on a tip from the RCMP, have seized almost
100 kilograms of marijuana from a boat in Washington state.

It's the latest in a string of busts this year in the waters off
southern Vancouver Island.

"It's a banner year out there for us," Joseph Giuliano of the U.S.
Border Patrol said Tuesday.

The authorities in western Washington have seized more than 2,500
kilograms of B.C. bud with one month still to go in their current
fiscal year.

That's up about 50 per cent, Giuliano said.

Almost half of those seizures -- about 1,000 kilograms -- have taken
place on the Olympic Peninsula or in Juan de Fuca Strait and often
have led to the arrests of Canadian smugglers.

"It's vastly more than last year," Giuliano said.

In the latest case, the RCMP tipped U.S. authorities to the
possibility that drugs were being transported aboard a six-metre
recreational boat that departed Canadian waters south of Vancouver
Island Saturday.

U.S. investigators tracked the boat by air and federal agents were
waiting to pounce when it reached a marina near Sequim.

Giuliano said the boat's operator put the vessel on a trailer and
pulled it out of the water without reporting for an inspection before
agents moved in to search it.

They found the marijuana with a wholesale value of $627,000 US below
deck and also recovered about $23,000 in cash. A 54-year-old U.S.
citizen faces drug smuggling charges.

Giuliano said it's difficult to say whether the rise in seizures is
the result of increased smuggling or better enforcement. "I tend to
believe it's a little of each," he said.

The Blaine border patrol and other agencies have increased staff and
resources since the 1999 arrest of terrorist Ahmed Ressam in Port
Angeles, and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. And,
increasingly, drug smugglers are getting caught in the dragnet.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, for instance, said last
weekend's marijuana bust was evidence that its new air and marine
branch in Bellingham is already paying dividends.

Two weeks ago, the agency opened the first of five branches designed
to bolster security along the Canada-U.S. border. The Bellingham
branch has been conducting regular air patrols and tracked the boat in
Saturday's drug arrest.

"ICE's surveillance capabilities play a crucial role in the effort to
stem smuggling across the northern border," Field Director Mark Beaty
of the Bellingham branch said in a release.

"Narcotics smugglers can expect to face more intense levels of
enforcement than they have encountered before."