BORDER SECURITY HAS SMUGGLERS EYEING ALBERTA'S GREENER PASTURES

CALGARY (CP) -- Frustrated by intense security along the British
Columbia-Washington border, smugglers of both drugs and people are heading
to Alberta in search of an easier route into the United States, say law
enforcement officials.

"They will continue to move wherever they can get through," said Monique
Hirko of immigration customs enforcement in Helena, Mont. "It's just a game
for them. Wherever it's easiest to go across, that's where they're going to
move.

Hirko said there have been definite signs that smuggling is picking up inland.

"I'd say for the last year and a half they're slowly working their way east
because of the heat they were getting from our ... counterparts over in the
Blaine, Wash., area."

Last month, 14 South Koreans were arrested trying to sneak into the U.S.
near the Chief Mountain border crossing between Alberta and Montana. It was
the second attempted smuggling operation on the Alberta-Montana border this
year.

In February, 10 people from South Korea were arrested after a failed
attempt to smuggle them into the U.S. All were deported.

"The offenders are looking for a more porous part of the border to get
through so they're starting to come further east to look for a route
south," said RCMP Const. Dale Duschesne, a member of the Integrated Border
Enforcement Team stationed in Raymond, Alta.

Smuggling attempts aren't confined to human cargo, he added.

"We've definitely had confirmed activity of drug smuggling that is geared
to getting ... marijuana from British Columbia into the United States
through the Alberta-Montana corridor," said Duschesne.

Not knowing the exact motivation behind the smuggling is especially
troubling to Hirko, who also has to assess terrorist threats.

"The smugglers -- are they a terrorist threat? Are they coming here to be
prostitutes? Are they working for a brothel that takes that money and sends
it back to a terrorist country?" she asked.

"They're pretty equally important because there's a profit to be made off
both and you have lives at stake."

Duschesne said it's also important to determine how much the individuals
being smuggled into the U.S. know.

"There's a difference between human smuggling and human trafficking," said
Duschesne.

"Trafficking is a scenario where you are being told you are going to work
in the hotel industry and in fact you're going to end up in the illicit sex
trade," he said.

"You're being moved by organized crime and people who convince young girls
and coerce them into a situation they don't want to be involved in."

Smugglers might not find Alberta any easier to get through, however, said
Richard Huntley of the Canada Border Services Agency and Immigration
Enforcement.

"How desperate are you when you're in the mountains in the middle of the
night? I don't know if I would consider that easy," said Huntley.