N.C. SEEN AS HUB FOR DRUG REPACKAGING

Federal authorities worry that North Carolina is playing a new role in
East Coast drug trafficking. Recent arrests and reports from drug
agents indicate the state is becoming a distribution hub for cocaine
and marijuana. An emerging pattern shows the drugs are driven from the
Mexican border eastward over the interstates and then repacked in
smaller amounts for shipment north, the officials say. North Carolina,
along with South Carolina and Georgia, are becoming what the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration calls "transshipment" states. Often, rural
areas provide cover for these staging areas near the intersections of
east-west and north-south highways.

"It's a dramatic change in the way North Carolina is viewed with
regard to drug enforcement," U.S. Attorney Frank Whitney said in a
recent interview. "It's no longer just a state where drugs are brought
to be consumed here. They're repackaged and redistributed up the
Eastern Seaboard."

Traditionally, midlevel dealers in North Carolina have had to travel
or send couriers to New York, Florida, California, Texas and Arizona.
Now the supplies come here, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Evenson,
who heads the drug section of the federal prosecutor's office in Raleigh.

Most of the cocaine and marijuana coming into North Carolina is sold
in this state, Evenson said. But several federal and local
investigations have illustrated the new pattern, he said.

Routes such as I-40, I-95 and I-85 make North Carolina an ideal
choice, said John Boone, acting head of the DEA office in Raleigh.
Agents have tracked a lot of cocaine from staging areas in North
Carolina to Virginia, Whitney said, as well as on up to Washington,
Baltimore and farther north.

Though federal authorities say this region is just beginning to
develop as a redistribution center, Charlotte and Atlanta are
well-established hubs, according to Douglas Wright, executive director
of the National Criminal Enforcement Association, which trains
interstate drug interdiction officers.

Some of the most important events of the past few years have created
the new pattern of drug distribution. NAFTA, 9/11, immigration and the
collapse of the Colombian cartels are most often cited as reasons.

Law enforcement pressure on Colombia's cocaine cartels over the past
15 years led to their demise. Cocaine still comes from that country,
but investigators say it's handled by smaller operators and smuggled
through Mexico rather than directly into the United States.

Thanks to NAFTA's opening trade between the U.S. and Mexico, thousands
of commercial trucks cross the border daily. Some of them are loaded
with cocaine and Mexican-grown marijuana.

"It's virtually impossible for the border patrol or customs to truly
check every one of these vehicles," Whitney said.

Law enforcement pressure on the old cocaine entry points -- Miami, Los
Angeles and Houston -- has decreased the use of those places as
staging points to repackage the drug from 1,000-kilogram shipments
into 10- or 20-kilo deliveries, Whitney and other federal officials
say.

A kilo of cocaine sold wholesale in the Triangle goes for about
$21,000, Boone said. Broken down into rocks of crack, a kilo could
produce well over $100,000.

Traffickers naturally fell into long-established marijuana
distributing routes from Mexico into the United States. The DEA calls
organized Mexican drug traffickers "a significant threat" in North
Carolina. One of the agency's fact sheets attributes part of the
problem to the influx of Mexican nationals while emphasizing that only
a few immigrants are involved in drugs.

Boone and other drug enforcement officials around the country also say
better airport security as a result of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist
attacks has moved drugs out of airports and onto the highways.

Federal drug agents and local police have scrutinized commercial
trucks more carefully, and that has prompted traffickers to hide drugs
in cars and SUVs with increasing sophistication.

In March, Davidson County deputies found 5 kilos of cocaine hidden in
the spare battery of a car on I-85. Davidson County is one of several
departments in North Carolina with teams that look specifically for
drugs on the interstate.

Maj. Dallas Hedrick, the acting sheriff of Davidson County, said
initially there was skepticism about focusing on the highways instead
of exclusively on the drugs already in neighborhoods.

"People wondered why we were worried about the interstate: 'Why aren't
you just worried about your own county?' " Hedrick said. "Well, the
little dude down here on the street corner selling a bag of marijuana,
that bag didn't just fall out of the sky on him. It came from a larger
supplier, and that came from a larger supplier."

Last year the Davidson County team seized more than $1 million in
suspected drug money, about 16 kilos of cocaine and 184 pounds of
marijuana as well as methamphetamine and other drugs just from I-85,
he said.

In November, the team stopped a California driver on a traffic
violation and found 12 kilos of cocaine destined for delivery to a
transshipment point in this state.

"Those drugs didn't originate here," Hedrick said. "We need to think
about that."