DRUG TRAFFICKING IN THE PACIFIC HAS A DISTINCT RUSSIAN FLAVOR

MEXICO CITY, Mexico -- U.S. pilots flying surveillance missions first
became suspicious of the 152-foot fishing boat when they spotted the vessel
in remote Pacific waters not known for having much fish.

When a Coast Guard team, patroling the Pacific under a multinational
agreement, finally boarded the Belize-flagged Svesda Maru south of Acapulco
last month, they found no functioning fishing equipment and few fish stored
in the cargo hold. Instead, officers uncovered 26,397 pounds of cocaine
with a street value of more than $500 million stashed in secret
compartments. It was the largest cocaine seizure in U.S. maritime history.

Since late last year, U.S. drug authorities have seized 129,721 pounds of
cocaine -- some 80 percent of it in boats sailing in the Pacific, according
to Coast Guard statistics. In contrast, 132,480 pounds were seized in
fiscal year 2000, a record annual amount.

There is another alarming trend as well -- Ukrainians and Russians are
increasingly being detained for manning drug boats.

The Svesda Maru bust was the latest in a string of major drug seizures off
Mexico involving Russian and Ukrainian crews, leading authorities to
suspect that Mexican smugglers -- in particular, the notorious
Arellano-Felix brothers gang -- are now in business with the Russian mafia.

Authorities also fear that the Russians are in cahoots with the rebel group
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

The two Russians and eight Ukrainians manning the Svesda Maru are now in
federal custody on smuggling charges.

Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) officials say that the cocaine
originated in Colombia and was headed either for Central America or Mexico,
from where it would eventually be smuggled into the United States.

The nationalities of the Svesda Maru crew are an "indication that there is
direct involvement or some kind of association between Russian organized
crime and members of the Arellano-Felix organization," said Errol Chavez, a
DEA agent in San Diego.

Chavez says the Svesda Maru must have received permission from the violent
Arellano-Felix cartel to transport cocaine in what is acknowledged as their
territory.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in San Diego said it was still too early to link
the captured Svesda Maru crew -- and a similar bust in February -- to
Russian crime syndicates.

"It is obviously a little unusual to find Russians with a large amount of
cocaine in the middle of the Pacific," said Gonzalo Curiel, the office's
chief of narcotics. "Two cases don't necessarily make a pattern, but
obviously it is something we will be looking at very closely."

Mexico is the largest transshipment point of South American cocaine bound
for the United States. The U.S. government estimates that half of the $65
billion in narcotics annually sold on U.S. streets passes through Mexico.

Last November, the office of Mexico's attorney general said it had proof
that Tijuana's Arellano-Felix gang had provided military hardware and cash
to the FARC, which controls most of the drug-growing areas of Colombia, in
exchange for large amounts of cocaine. The FARC taxes drug producers in
areas under its control to finance its 37-year-old uprising against the
government.

Last September, in a scene worthy of a Tom Clancy novel, police stumbled
upon a half-built submarine in a warehouse outside Bogota. The 100-foot sub
was being built to smuggle cocaine, reportedly with the help of the Russian
mafia.

According to the Associated Press, leaders from Mexico's other leading drug
cartels met for a three-day summit last month aimed at uniting their
operations. The report, which cited unnamed sources, prompted speculation
that the Arellano-Felix brothers may have looked to the Russian underworld
to help protect their business interests and ensure their longevity.

Interpol, the international police organization, says hundreds of small
Russian mafia "cells" operate in Mexico, though the DEA and Mexican
authorities have never linked them publicly to the Arellano-Felix ring.

Ernesto Lopez Portillo, an organized-crime expert in Mexico City, notes
that Russian crime organizations are the world's fastest-growing crime
groups and may very well be developing narcotics ties in Mexico.

"They have the money. They have the protection. They have the power," said
Lopez Portillo. "Why would they stop if they find a market to supply?"

"These are all very entrepreneurial people," added Brian Jenkins, an
authority on international crime at Rand Corp. of Santa Monica, which
advises multinational corporations. "They are in a sense globalizing for
the same reasons all businesses are globalizing. Organized crime does not
work very differently than regular business."

But Jenkins cautioned against concluding that the recent drug hauls signal
"a vast, centrally directed underworld." Instead, he suggests that criminal
gangs are plugged in to similar groups in the same way the World Wide Web
functions.

"This is the underworld equivalent of global sourcing," he said.

But there are doubters. Russian underworld syndicates are known to be much
more active in Central Asia and southern and eastern Europe than in the
Americas. U.S. intelligence sources say they basically help Colombians
import drugs into Europe through Italy.

"It seems like a very big leap from where they were," said Peter Reuter, a
professor at the Public Policy School at the University of Maryland. "And
it is not as if the Colombians don't know already how to do this."