STOWAWAY NOTHING NEW IN GLOBAL DRUG TRADE

A stowaway on a ship from Colombia who attempted to smuggle 210 pounds
of cocaine through the Port of Mobile made headlines this week when he
and another Colombian man were caught in the act.

But authorities say running drugs through the port aboard cargo ships
is nothing unusual, and, in fact, is on the rise as trade with Latin
America grows.

"It happens a lot, and it's impossible to detect it a lot of times
because there are all kinds of ways to hide drugs on a big ship," said
U.S. Attorney Don Foster of Mobile.

Although federal and local authorities have seized almost 900 pounds
of Colombian cocaine brought into Mobile-area waterways this year,
they say that is only the tip of a very large mountain of white powder
that slips through this and almost every other U.S. port every month,
every year.

"It's a big Gulf, and we don't have the resources to check every ship
that comes through it," said Kenneth McNamara, resident agent in
charge of U.S. Customs Service Office of Investigations in Mobile. "In
some ways, it's a bleak picture. But in other ways, we're having some
successes against the drug trade."

In most cases, Mobile streets probably aren't the final destination
for the drug cargo. Drugs seized in a February raid were believed to
be headed for New York, and one suspect arrested in this week's
seizure was driving a car with Mississippi tags.

For years, local business and government leaders have been courting
trade with Latin American countries. And as the North American Free
Trade Agreement has dissolved tariffs and other trade barriers,
shipping between South American ports and Mobile has boomed. Alabama
electric utilities this year also began shipping what will amount to
more than 5 million tons of Colombian coal through Mobile every year.
That's about one ship a week, all coming from Colombia, the epicenter
of the world's cocaine crop.

In the last 12 months, the number of ships sailing to Mobile from
South American ports - mostly in Colombia - has increased
dramatically, from 10 a month to about 14, Customs Service records
show.

Although most of the ships haul legitimate cargo, authorities say many
of those same vessels probably carry cocaine hidden in secret
compartments, inside sewage tanks, under piles of raw material or even
built into the structure of the vessel. In many cases, the ship's
captain and owners may not be aware of the contraband, law officers
say.

"It works against the drug trade to have a conspiracy involving a
large number of people," McNamara said.

The bright spot, law enforcement officials say, is that the Port of
Mobile handles mostly bulk cargo, such as petroleum, ore and coal, not
container cargo, making it more difficult to hide large quantities of
drugs.

"It's kind of hard to do all that with a tanker full of gasoline,"
said Sarah Teague, spokeswoman for the Alabama State Docks.

Bulk carriers aren't immune to the smuggler's craft, however. The ship
Pioneer, in which authorities say a Colombian man this week had stowed
himself and the 210 pounds of cocaine in a small compartment near the
rudder, was carrying petroleum to the Shell Oil refinery near Mobile.
Last May, a U.S. Coast Guard inspection of a ship headed from Brazil
to Houston turned up 4 tons of cocaine buried in iron ore pellets in
the ship's hold.

Foster said he's also heard of cases in other port cities in which a
compartment has been attached to the underside of the ship. When the
vessel docks, a diver will retrieve the cocaine.

Ports like Biloxi, which handle boxed cargo such as bananas or
appliances, see even more drug smuggling, McNamara said.

"There may be 100,000 boxes of bananas, and one box is specially
marked, so they (smugglers) know which box to take," he said.

In other cases, ships will tie off to oil and gas rigs 20 to 30 miles
from shore, and leave the drugs attached below the water line. A
smaller boat will swoop in at night and retrieve the contraband,
authorities say. In many instances, crew members carry smaller
quantities, less than 10 pounds, officials say.

"Every crew member that goes to South America is approached by someone
on the street or in a bar or something," McNamara said. "And a lot of
these guys are paid low wages on the ship, so a lot of them do it.
They get approached all the time."

Customs and drug-enforcement agencies can't search every crew member
and every ship steaming here from South America, officials say. For
one thing, the agencies don't have the manpower. For another, such
intrusion would disrupt legitimate business too much in ports that
handle ships from all over the world, ships that must get in and out
of port quickly.

Instead, agents, like all law-enforcement agencies, must rely on
undercover work, informants and intelligence-gathering. That's how
Edilberto Palomete Venitez, the stowaway, and Belamuro Ruiz-Manyoma of
Colombia were busted this week: A tip let a federal, state and local
task force know that the cocaine was on the ship. By the time they
arrived to search, the stowaway was gone, but the drugs were found in
a marshy area about 200 yards east of the ship.

Officers staked out the scene and arrested Ruiz and Palomete after the
two showed up later to recover the stash, authorities said. A
suspected co-conspirator is still at large.