FLOOD OF ECSTASY A NEW CHALLENGE FOR CUSTOMS

Diversity Of Smugglers Keeps Officials Guessing

It was mid-afternoon, and six U.S. Customs inspectors and a dog named Bird
were standing next to a clanking baggage conveyor belt that runs beneath
Newark (N.J.) International Airport's Terminal B, waiting for the "blitz" to
begin.

"The aircraft is pulling into the gate," Maryam Assad, a supervisory customs
inspector, yelled to her colleagues over the noisy conveyor, after hearing
the message on her walkie-talkie.

Within minutes, the "blitz" was in full swing -- every piece of luggage
taken from the hold of Continental's Flight 71 from Amsterdam was being fed
through a portable X-ray machine in a customs van, and Bird, an enthusiastic
black Labrador, was loping along the baggage conveyor belt, sniffing
suitcases and backpacks for the telltale chemical odor of Ecstasy.

Not long ago, affluent "culture tourists," business travelers, and college
backpackers arriving at Newark on flights from Western Europe received far
less scrutiny from customs inspectors. Instead, the bags of travelers coming
from South American countries where cocaine and heroin are produced were the
most likely to be "blitzed" -- subjected to a complete luggage search.

But the growing popularity of Ecstasy has prompted customs officials at
Newark's airport to make a dramatic shift in the way they do business. The
agency's new aggressive posture was formulated after an incident last fall
that deeply alarmed ranking customs officials in New Jersey.

That was when inspectors discovered that three Dutch tourists in their 50s
had arrived at Terminal B with 106 pounds of the hallucinogenic drug in a
suitcase. It still ranks as the nation's largest seizure of Ecstasy from air
passengers.

But what really disturbed customs officials was the realization that they
may have been missing many other Ecstasy smugglers coming across the
Atlantic Ocean, people who would never have received a second glance from an
inspector.

So, inspectors at Newark have begun to closely scrutinize travelers coming
from the Netherlands and Belgium, where experts say nearly 90 percent of the
worldwide supply of Ecstasy is produced in illicit laboratories. And Newark
enjoys the dubious distinction of being the second busiest airport in the
nation for Ecstasy seizures -- only slightly behind Kennedy International
Airport in New York City.

"We saw this explosion of Ecstasy, a really alarming increase," Thomas
Manifase, assistant special agent in charge of the agency investigative
office in Newark, said of the past year. In 1998, inspectors made only a
single seizure of Ecstasy -- just over 13 pounds -- at Newark Airport. Then
in 1999, Ecstasy seizures at the airport skyrocketed to a total of 319
pounds. So far this year, inspectors have made 18 seizures, totaling 240
pounds.

Top officials of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration say the pills are
manufactured by Dutch chemists and largely trafficked by factions of Israeli
organized-crime groups. The profit margins in the illicit business are
astronomical; Ecstasy pills cost as little as 5 cents apiece to manufacture,
but sell for $30 in the clubs, Manifase said.

The traffickers employ American, Israeli and Western European couriers, who
travel as tourists with some 10,000 to 20,000 pills concealed on their
person.

As inspectors at Newark and other airports across the country have become
more successful at finding Ecstasy shipments, the traffickers have
introduced new techniques to hoodwink the authorities. The organizations
have recruited middle-class travelers and pay them up to $10,000, with a
free vacation thrown in, in exchange for transporting the pills. The wide
variety of travelers now carrying the drug has made the Customs Service's
job more challenging.

"We're getting all types of people, as young as 19 and as old as 63," said
Edward Morera, a supervisory customs inspector at Newark's Terminal B.

To confound the customs inspectors, traffickers have begun to ship the pills
from the Netherlands and Belgium into neighboring countries. There, the
smugglers depart from airports in Paris, Frankfurt, Germany, and London, in
hopes that less official attention will be paid to these flights, Morera
said.

Underneath the customs arrival hall, Morera and his fellow inspectors
closely eye the bags as they pass on the conveyor belt. Bird, the black Lab,
had pawed at several, and inspectors took them off the belt for a second
sniff.

Other inspectors stare at the screen on the X-ray van and look for the
tablets inside luggage.

But no Ecstasy was found on the Amsterdam flight.

Federal authorities, however, know the drug is somehow making its way into
the country. A high-ranking DEA official said German police believe more
than 2 million pills are being smuggled into the United States each week
from various cities throughout Europe.