COCAINE SEIZURES BY U.S. DOUBLE IN PACIFIC OCEAN

Seizures of South American cocaine bound for the United States through the
Pacific Ocean have more than doubled in the last year, and U.S. drug
authorities say the Pacific's wide open seas have replaced the congested
Caribbean as the drug cartels' most lucrative trafficking route.

The increased seizures are a result of a major redeployment of the U.S.
Coast Guard's Pacific Coast forces away from their more traditional
missions of fisheries enforcement and support of military exercises that
counter drug trafficking, senior officials said.

"More than half of the cocaine that leaves South America is now coming up
the Pacific side," said Rear Adm. Terry Cross, the Coast Guard's chief of
operations. "The drug smugglers are using the Pacific like any business;
they're picking the least risky and least costly [route] for them."

U.S. law enforcement authorities said the expanding use of the eastern
Pacific as a major drug trafficking route is particularly troubling because
the open ocean is so difficult to patrol and because most of the drug
shipments are put ashore in Mexico, where law enforcement has traditionally
been lax and drug cartels have exerted growing control over police and
public officials in the past decade.

"In the short term, we anticipate continued heavy flow through the eastern
Pacific," said Vice Adm. Ernest Riutta, the Coast Guard commander for the
Pacific area. "There's a limit to how much I can throw out there, and [the
traffickers] have unlimited resources."

Drug smugglers' techniques in the Pacific are also far more challenging to
law enforcement. While much of the cocaine in the Caribbean is moved in
open speedboats that are easily identifiable by their oversized engines and
extra fuel containers, most cocaine traverses the Pacific in the hulls of
fishing boats or aboard massive container ships that are virtually
impossible to search, law enforcement authorities and analysts said.

"They bring the drugs in cargo ships, and it never hits the intelligence
radar screen," said Stephen Flynn, a fellow at the Council on Foreign
Relations who is researching a book on the impact of globalization on the
smuggling of drugs, arms and illegal immigrants. "And law enforcement is
always slow to react to trends."

U.S. authorities began detecting an increased use of the eastern Pacific as
a drug trafficking route nearly five years ago but have dedicated
relatively few resources to the area because of financial constraints and
jurisdictional bickering among U.S. law enforcement agencies and between
the United States and Latin American countries.

However, in the last year, U.S. agencies including the Coast Guard, Drug
Enforcement Administration and Customs have begun sharing intelligence
information and coordinating operations more efficiently, senior law
enforcement authorities and Coast Guard officials said.

"Significant increases occurred in inter-operability and info-sharing with
U.S. military and national intelligence agencies," said Cmdr. Jim
McPherson, a Coast Guard spokesman.

In addition, while U.S. officials said they continue to have conflicts with
Mexico's anti-drug agencies, the Mexican navy has become increasingly
cooperative in coordinating drug operations with the Coast Guard in the
Pacific.

The Coast Guard has dedicated increasing numbers of cutters to drug
interdictions, and in the first 10 months of this fiscal year, it has
already exceeded last year's record cocaine hauls with seizures totaling
more than 58 tons and worth an estimated $3.9 billion, according to Coast
Guard documents. During the entire previous fiscal year, the agency
captured 55 tons in what had been its highest seizure rate in history.

Overall, cocaine seizures by the Coast Guard have more than tripled in the
last five years. In the last year, the location of the seizures has shifted
dramatically. "Eighty percent of the cocaine we've interdicted is in the
eastern Pacific, compared to 38 percent last year," Cross said.

The record seizures are part of a larger pattern of dramatic increases in
Colombian cocaine production and a spurt in illegal drug use among 18- to
25-year-old in the past two years in the United States, according to U.S.
law enforcement agencies. The combined trends have alarmed law enforcement
authorities and policymakers, helping prompt President Clinton to approve a
$1.3 billion aid package to assist the Colombian government in fighting
drug production and trafficking.

Coast Guard officials said the significant increase in Pacific seizures is
due to the agency's growing emphasis on patrols and operations in the
region, as well as to greater use of Pacific trafficking routes by
smugglers. In February alone, Coast Guard cutters confiscated 15.6 tons of
cocaine on four vessels plying Pacific routes, according to Coast Guard
documents. Those included the two largest seizures of the year--two
Colombian fishing vessels hauling six tons of cocaine each.

In a typical seizure in July, the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Chase stopped a
Colombian fishing vessel about 900 miles north of Colombia based on
intelligence reports of suspected drug trafficking.

A member of the boarding team, Lt. j.g. Anna Slaven, 24, said in a
telephone interview from the cutter that she became even more suspicious
when she noticed that the fishing gear appeared not to have been used in
weeks and the crew members were far too well-dressed to be fishermen. After
hours of searching, the team discovered half a ton of cocaine bricks frozen
amid crushed ice and rotting shark pieces in the holds of the 60-foot boat.