DRUG ACTIVITY GRINDS TO HALT AT U.S.-MEXICO BORDER

Tighter Security At Checkpoints After Terrorist Attacks Puts
Traffickers In A Bind

MEXICO CITY - Mexican traffickers have all but frozen daily shipments
of illegal drugs across the U.S.-Mexico border amid a massive buildup
of U.S. Customs Service inspectors and National Guard troops.

Daily drug seizures along the Mexican border have dropped to almost
zero since last week's terrorist attacks in New York and Washington,
Mexican and U.S. law enforcement officials said Thursday.

That's a direct result of U.S. authorities searching almost every
passenger and commercial vehicle crossing the border, U.S. Customs
Service officials said.

"[Traffickers] watch us very closely, so they know we are now on a
very tough security footing," said Customs Service spokesman Dean
Boyd. "If I were a smuggler, I would not want to be trying to send
anything illegal across the border right now."

The growing stockpiles of illegal drugs waiting to be shipped across
the border into the United States could soon start affecting the
street price of cocaine, heroin and marijuana, Mexican authorities
said.

"How long they can hold shipments is a good question," Mr. Boyd said.
"These guys have bills to pay, too, so they must be getting anxious."

While it's too soon to quantify the slowdown, Mexican authorities
along the border and in Mexico City said they've noticed a reduction
in drug-related activity, primarily in the busy Tijuana-San Diego
border region. That area supplies a majority of the cocaine, heroin,
marijuana and methamphetamines sold on the streets of the western
United States, through the powerful Arellano-F=C8lix drug organization.

Almost two-thirds of the cocaine sold in the United States is
smuggled across the U.S.-Mexico border.

On a normal day - before the terrorist alert - U.S. officials capture
up to 20 vehicle shipments of drugs in San Diego and El Paso, which
together record as many as 75,000 vehicle crossings each day. One or
two loads a day have been seized in the last week, Customs Service
officials said.

Activity at other busy drug trafficking spots in Mexico has slowed,
Mexican officials added. At the Tijuana International Airport, for
example, there have been only two seizures since Sept. 11 - for small
amounts of heroin. Before the terrorist strike, Mexican police said
there was a significant confiscation almost every other day.

"It seems as though the drug dealers don't want to risk seizures of
their products with all this extra police activity," said a Mexican
federal prosecutor in Tijuana.

The last time the border was this tight was shortly before Jan. 1,
2000, when U.S. officials went on a so-called "Level One" alert after
the arrest of a suspected terrorist who attempted to cross from
Canada to Washington state with explosive materials. But that
lockdown was short-lived, and officials did not have time to register
its impact on drug activity.

The current crawl at major border crossings - up to four-hour waits
for vehicle crossings into Texas at various times of the day -
reminds officials of the Customs Service crackdown in 1984, after the
murder of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique Camarena
by Mexican drug traffickers.

With this week's crackdown - National Guard units are supporting
hundreds of extra Customs Service agents patrolling the Mexican and
Canadian borders and major airports - criminal activity is down
across the board in Tijuana.

One trafficker was arrested Wednesday carrying tablets of the drug
"ecstasy," a local prosecutor said. But Tijuana's usually vibrant and
often illicit nightlife has come to a grinding halt.