CAREER MARIJUANA SMUGGLER IS CALLED RISK-TAKER

Glen Zacher Faces Charges After Being Caught In A Drug Bust In Des Moines

The small airplane dipped beneath the low-hanging clouds and landed on a
New Mexico ranch road where a pickup truck was waiting.

The single-engine Cessna was returning from Mexico laden with almost 800
pounds of marijuana, baled, wrapped in plastic and crammed into the space
where its passenger seats used to be.

At the stick that day in November 1991 was Glen Zacher.

The quiet pilot and his co-pilot and partner, Craig Clymore, had made at
least three runs that month, including this one carrying a load worth more
than $1 million.

When the plane landed, Customs agents arrested Zacher and Clymore for their
role in an international drug-running network that spanned Mexico,
California, New Mexico, Texas and Utah. Zacher spent nine years in federal
prison.

Ten years later, Zacher landed again, this time in Des Moines.

The 49-year-old Californian was arrested as he scrambled up barbed wire
outside a north-side warehouse last week. Officers moved in during a
marijuana deal set up by undercover state drug agents. Zacher had been a
fugitive for a year since skipping his parole after being released from prison.

He declined The Des Moines Register's request for an interview.

Zacher is believed to have smuggled more than 13,000 pounds of marijuana,
worth more than $13 million, between 1989 and 1991, U.S. Customs officials
said.

Investigators who recall the man first arrested for selling pot almost 30
years ago and the agents who arrested him in Iowa this month describe
Zacher the same way: intelligent and arrogant, a skilled pilot, a risk
addict and a career pot smuggler.

The Iowa Division of Narcotics Enforcement last month intercepted an
overnight package from Zacher containing suspected marijuana and found an
informant to help set up a buy in Des Moines.

Zacher came from California on Nov. 1 to negotiate the price: $105,000 for
150 pounds, narcotics agent Ron Hallock said.

Hallock brought the money to a warehouse at Broadway Avenue and East 14th
Street the next day. Zacher allegedly had arranged for Steven Sweeney, a
friend from California, to deliver the load to Des Moines.

Iowa drug enforcement agents and deputy U.S. marshals caught Zacher after
he attempted to scale the barbed-wire top of a chain-link fence. Sweeney
rammed a Polk County sheriff's car with the Ford Explorer that authorities
said contained 250 pounds of pot.

Both men are charged with conspiracy and possession of marijuana with
intent to deliver. Zacher remains in Polk County Jail without bond.

Zacher's Des Moines trip was quite different from the deals he was working
a decade earlier, agents said. It was conducted by land, instead of by air.
It involved a much smaller load than the 450- to 1,700-pound loads agents
traced Zacher to in New Mexico, Texas and California. The Iowa deal was "a
drop in the bucket for him," one agent said.

But it's clear that Zacher maintained his connections during nine years in
prison, and that he was in charge of the month-long negotiations for the
Des Moines deal, agents said.

"He's extremely self-confident, bordering on arrogant," Hallock said. "He's
obviously good at what he does up to a point and has confidence in that."

Hallock's impression resonates with officers who tracked Zacher to the
ranch near Carlsbad, N.M., 10 years ago.

"He's an adrenaline junky," said Ward Olson, former U.S. Customs director
in Albuquerque, N.M. "I think Zacher is your typical cowboy pilot risk-taker."

Zacher boasted after his 1991 arrest how he had exploited gaps in U.S.
Customs radar with his knowledge of the terrain and skill at flying low,
Olson said.

"This guy bragged he could fly under the cone of silence," said Olson, who
retired from the agency in 1993.

Zacher flew between Mexico and southeastern New Mexico or southwest Texas
often low enough to elude detection by radar balloons floating at 20,000 feet.

Olson recalls an example of Zacher's contempt from 1991.

Customs agents flying near the border had intercepted Zacher's Cessna 206
returning from Mexico and flew close enough to make visual contact.

Zacher had turned around and was headed back to Mexico when the Customs
pilot motioned for him to land. Zacher raised his middle finger at the
agent and flew back into Mexico, Olson said.

"Our pilot made contact, zeroed in and Zacher just flipped him off when
they flew up alongside him," Olson said. "He was gone."

By then, Zacher had connected with Clymore, a convicted heroin dealer and
suspected pot smuggler whom agents described as flamboyant, affable and
well-known in Hollywood circles.

Neither man was using his real name to periodically buy airplanes - usually
a Cessna 206, the preferred aircraft of smugglers - and have them repaired
and customized, agents said.

Zacher, as Wayne Powell, and Clymore, as Steve Brown, told mechanics the
modifications they were requesting, such as adding larger fuel tanks and
removing the seats, were to accommodate equipment for hunting trips to Alaska.

But they were regularly flying between Ojinga, Mexico, in the northern
state of Chihuahua, and southeast New Mexico, former Eddy County (N.M.)
Sheriff Jack Childress said.

On Christmas Eve, 1990, state troopers called Childress about an airplane
stuck in the mud halfway between El Paso and Carlsbad. By the time
Childress and his investigator got there, Zacher had been to town to get
rope and had pulled the plane out.

A few months later, Zacher's 9-year-old son was on board when the plane
began having engine problems.

"He came in hard and cut the boy up," Childress said. "We found traces of
blood at the scene."

Each time Zacher was suspected of carrying 500 to 800 pounds of marijuana.
Childress and Customs agents in New Mexico appeared to be a step behind him.

"From "90 to "91 (he) was a thorn in our side," Childress said.

U.S. Customs special Agent Don Daufenbach in Salt Lake City was
investigating Clymore in 1990.

Clymore was using the address of a Park City, Utah, condominium that Zacher
owned. Daufenbach suspected the two of working together when he found that
Zacher had been arrested in 1985 for smuggling 800 pounds of marijuana in
Santa Barbara, Calif.

Zacher had first been arrested for distribution of marijuana in Atlanta in
1972. He was arrested in Orange County, Calif., for the same thing in 1987.

"That's how I put two and two together," Daufenbach said. "I was just
trying to find Clymore. Zacher was really incidental."

On Nov. 23, 1991, Zacher had dodged the radar again on his way back from
Ojinga.

But the driver waiting on the makeshift airstrip north of Carlsbad wasn't
alone in the pickup. Childress and Daufenbach were among the officers
hiding in the back.

They had been monitoring radio contact between Zacher and the driver, who
had agreed to become an informant.

The two were indicted in federal court in New Mexico on charges of
conspiracy to distribute more than 100 kilograms of marijuana. They pleaded
guilty and were sentenced to 10 years in prison.

The airplane would be confiscated by federal agents and turned over to the
Eddy County Sheriff's Department to track smugglers, said Childress, who
retired in 1994.

"During sentencing, they both wanted to be assigned to the same prison and
be trained in computers," said Eric Andreucci, the Customs agent in charge
of the case. "The judge split them up."

Zacher was sent to prison in Texas and was transferred to California. He
served nine years before being released in August 2000.

Clymore served his sentence in Oklahoma and also was released last year.