OFFICERS GRAPPLE WITH POWERFUL CARTELS

With three-quarters of northcentral Montana's meth supply flowing from
southcentral Washington, their problem is our problem.

The long-term solution: Cut off the pipeline at Yakima. But turning
the valve on the lucrative drug trade isn't easy, especially for
Montana's counterparts in Washington.

"It's never going to be stopped," warned Yakima's Assistant U.S.
Attorney Donald Kresse Jr. "You think it's bad now, it's only a matter
of time before it explodes."

Montana officers lock away Washington meth traffickers for years in
federal prisons. But almost before the prison doors slam shut, other
dealers eagerly step in to resume the business.

Taking out low-level dealers hasn't stopped the roughly 10 pounds of
methamphetamine flowing from the Yakima area into northcentral Montana
each week.

The drug rings are well-organized and well-armed. They have elaborate
schemes for covering their tracks.

Most are tightknit family cartels with tentacles stretching all the
way to Mexico.

But even as the problem mushrooms, cash-strapped Washington police
departments are cutting back on officers devoted to fighting drugs.
One task force lost half its staff.

"We're really trying. I promise," said Mary McElderry, the resident
agent in charge of the Yakima DEA office. "It's a lucrative business
for people here who are unemployed. At the prices they can sell it for
(in Montana), you don't need to sell much more than a pound to make a
lot of money."

In May 2001, federal Judge Donald Molloy sentenced a then 22-year-old
Yakima man, Victor Saucedo, to life in prison. He hoped word would
spread from his Great Falls courtroom to the streets of Yakima and end
the onslaught of imported methamphetamine.

"You have wreaked horror on this community," he said. "There has to be
a message sent."

That message either didn't make it back to Washington or couldn't
compete with the allure of drug profits.

"I haven't heard that it has had an impact here," Yakima police Lt.
Greg Copeland said. "I suppose it could to those who knew Victor
Saucedo. But there's too much money to be made in drugs to stop them
from making the trip."

Saucedo paid as little as $1,500 for a pound of meth. Dealers working
for him could sell it for $1,000 to $1,200 an ounce.

The 450 pounds of methamphetamine Saucedo brought from Yakima provided
some 200,000 doses for addicts, primarily in Great Falls, Havre and on
the Rocky Boy's Indian Reservation.

Here, Saucedo was a big player, but in Yakima he was just a low-level
drug runner -- one of hundreds of "mules."

"I know that Victor Saucedo isn't any big deal in the state of
Washington," said Lori Harper-Suek, the assistant U.S. Attorney who
prosecuted him. "They are so busy there with their own problem. They
have 500 for every one of ours."

Yakima's Challenge

Southcentral Washington gets more than half of its meth supply from
California and Mexico. For the most part, Washington labs supply
Washington users, leaving the imported meth to be exported across the
country.

Washington has had the second or third most meth labs in the country
each of the past five years.

Law enforcement found 1,800 labs in California in 2001. Washington had
a third of that, or 601 labs. By comparison, Montana had 59 that year.

Finding and investigating those local meth labs devours police
manpower.

Last year, Yakima police had 354 drug cases and seized $5.7 million in
drugs, 50 handguns and rifles and $192,000 in drug cash.

Copeland said the department has little time or resources for
undercover work, but occasionally an officer will don a baseball cap
to buy drugs. Of the 130 police officers, 13 specialize in drug
investigations and meth labs.

Most labs are small, producing one to three ounces for personal use,
just like labs in Montana that use milk jugs and bathtubs. But also
hidden in Yakima Valley's vast fields and farms are a number of
high-producing superlabs, most of which go undiscovered until the drug
cooks are long gone.

Large-Scale Operators

Mexican cartels run the large labs, producing pounds of drugs to sell
across the country. They pay farm managers to use their property, cook
the meth, then vanish.

"We've had huge dumpsites where we've had to bring in backhoes to
clean it up," said Sgt. Doug Hintze, of the rural Yakima County drug
task force. "They move around a lot here. The labs we've found we've
essentially stumbled into."

A tip led officers to one of the state's biggest-known labs, one that
manufactured 34 pounds at a time, located within miles of an
elementary school at an orchard in rural Benton County.

"If it hadn't been for an upset girlfriend, we would never have found
out about it," said Tri-City Metro Drug Task Force Sgt. Mike Monroe.
"How many more of those do we not know about?"

As deputies pulled up to the Benton County farm, the meth cooks faded
into the surrounding orchards. Some were arrested, and 30 pounds of
meth was seized.

Within a half-hour of the deputies arriving, Mexican nationals running
the lab emptied bank accounts tied to those arrested, Monroe said. The
paper trail leading back to the drug cartel was destroyed.

When drug cooks or dealers at the bottom tier of a drug organization
are arrested, they often know too little about the operation to be
helpful to police.

Those who are clued in are paid well enough to keep
quiet.

"He's not going to tell you where he got it," Yakima Assistant U.S.
Attorney Donald Kresse Jr. said. "What's in it for them? A few years
off their sentence. ... What's that to having a job paying you
hundreds of thousands of dollars when you get out."

Family Ties

Drug kingpins aren't afraid to flex their muscle if money is
unpersuasive. Kresse said organizations have been known to kidnap
drugs and dealers coming from southcentral Washington.

"There's times when we take someone out on Friday, and we hear someone
coming in Monday to take his place," Great Falls police Sgt. Jeff
Beecroft said. "We're doing what we need to do. We're arresting people
weekly. There's just not enough time in the day."