GRAB PROGRAM TARGETS SMUGGLERS

Since tighter security at the international bridges resulted in record
drug seizures last year, drug smugglers have been looking for
alternative routes.

But police are on to them.

For a year, the El Paso Police Department has operated a hush-hush
unit called Ground Rail and Bus, or GRAB. GRAB officers hunt drug
smugglers, their shipments and their money in buses, trains and rental
cars, and even through the mail system.

"Since September 11 (2001), but not only because of September 11,
methods of transporting drugs and revenue (from drug trafficking) have
changed. We need to be able to change with the current drug trend.
With this task force, we have been able to address this issue more
aggressively," said Police Chief Carlos Leon.

Leon would not give specific details on how many officers work for
GRAB or how the unit operates. But he said techniques include
surveillance, undercover work, the use of informants and the use of
tips from the community.

GRAB started in February, thanks to a one-year, $373,000 grant from
the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, or HIDTA. Since then,
officers have made 49 arrests and the following seizures:

$679,000 cash in 26 cases.

240 pounds of cocaine in nine cases.

1,800 pounds of marijuana in 29 cases.

Sandalio Gonzalez, the special agent in charge of the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration in El Paso said that one of his agents
helps police prepare federal cases that arise from GRAB operations,
but that the DEA has not dedicated agents to join police on the streets.

"We don't have the personnel, but we will, maybe, in a couple of
months," he said.

Another, higher-profile operation financed by HIDTA and operated by
state and federal agencies is the Stash House Unit started in 1999.
That unit depends heavily on tips from neighbors who notice that a
house on their street might be used for storing drugs. Stash House
Unit operations have yielded as much as 3,800 pounds of cocaine and
3,600 pounds of marijuana in single busts.

Officials of the U.S. Customs Service have reportedly seized a record
326,553 pounds of heroin, cocaine, methamphetamines and marijuana in
fiscal year 2002. The previous record was 308,998 pounds in fiscal
2000, officials said.