ANTI-DRUG AUTHORITIES MAKE ANOTHER BIG COCAINE SEIZURE

SAN DIEGO -- U.S. authorities unloaded 8.8 tons of cocaine yesterday
that they said was seized on a rusty fishing boat off the coast of
Mexico.

It was the largest in a recent string of cocaine seizures, including
one from a fishing boat off the Washington coast.

The Coast Guard said a Navy destroyer with a Coast Guard law
enforcement unit on board seized the boat Feb. 24 about 250 miles
west of Acapulco. They towed the boat to San Diego.

The seizure, which the Coast Guard said was the government's
fourth-largest ever, capped what the agency called one of its most
productive weeks of anti-drug patrols.

In six days, the Coast Guard -- from Miami to the Caribbean, and in
the Pacific from Mexico to Washington -- seized 28,845 pounds of
cocaine, about what it captured in all of 1996.

"We've never had a week like this where our border has been assaulted
all the way from the Bahamas to Seattle," said Cmdr. Jim McPherson.

During the string of seizures from Feb. 21 to Feb. 27, the agencies
captured 5,538 pounds from a Canadian trawler off Washington's coast
on Feb. 21, and 3,920 pounds from a small powerboat north of San
Juan, Puerto Rico, on Feb. 25.

In all, 24 people were arrested over the six-day period.

Those arrested off Washington were held for several days in
Immigration and Naturalization Service detention near Seattle, then
turned over last week to Canadian authorities.

Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta praised the anti-drug effort.

"Those engaged in drug trafficking are attempting to penetrate all of
our borders," he said near a Coast Guard pier, where the 8.8 tons of
cocaine were stacked neatly in large blocks on wooden pallets.

The 10 crew members of the Belize-flagged boat, the "Forever My
Friend," will face drug smuggling charges that carry a minimum
10-year sentence and a maximum of life in prison, U.S. Attorney
Gregory Vega said.

They were to appear in federal court in San Diego today.

Eight of the men are from Nicaragua, one is from El Salvador and one
from Ukraine. The cocaine was hidden in a secret compartment, buried
under ice and fresh fish, authorities said.

Agents wearing surgical masks and gloves and protective white
jumpsuits, spent yesterday morning unloading the large blocks of
cocaine from the Forever My Friend. Federal agents with automatic
weapons guarded it on the pier.

The string of recent seizures reflects a general increase in the
amount of cocaine seized at sea by the Coast Guard working with the
Navy, the Customs Service, Drug Enforcement Administration and other
federal agencies.

In 1999, the Coast Guard seized a record 55 tons of cocaine, which
broke the previous high of 40.7 tons. Then in 2000, the agency
captured 66 tons.

The Coast Guard estimates that it catches only a small fraction of
U.S.-bound cocaine, which is generally produced in Colombia and
shipped either through the Caribbean or via the Pacific to Mexico to
be smuggled overland into the United States through the Southwest.

"We've put a dent in it, but we certainly haven't cut off the flow or
driven the price of cocaine through the roof," said Capt. Joseph
Conroy, chief of the agency's law enforcement division.

Navy ships on anti-drug patrols travel with Coast Guard contingents
on board because the U.S. military is prohibited from law enforcement
activities.

The Coast Guard, which is part of the Transportation Department,
faces no such restriction.