THE COAST GUARD'S SECRET NEW WEAPON

Stopping Drug Smugglers On The High Seas

ABOARD THE USCG CUTTER GALLATIN-The glistening Caribbean is a
tourists' delight. But vacationers aren't the only ones cruising its
turquoise waterways these days. The Windward Passage around the
islands of Cuba, Hispaniola, and Jamaica is the most direct and
favored route for drug smugglers piloting small, high-speed boats
loaded with cocaine and marijuana bound for the United States. Nearly
half the narcotics that entered the United States last year went
through the Caribbean, 61 percent on "go-fast" smuggling boats
specially designed to elude clunky cutters operated by the Coast
Guard, the only U.S. law enforcement agency with authority to stop
vessels on the high seas. These sleek crafts, powered by two to four
250 horsepower motors, ride low in the water, hugging the waves,
almost invisible to radar or tracking aircraft.

Even if spotted, they can easily outrun the Coast Guard's aging
cutters.

Like last month, when two sluggish Coast Guard ships pursued smugglers
for 13 hours over 250 miles only to watch helplessly as the boat
finally raced out of reach.

Winning force.

Two weeks later, the cutter Gallatin gave chase to what turned out to
be the very same boat and crew; this time they didn't get away. As the
smugglers' boat sped toward Jamaica's territorial waters, where it
would be safe from Coast Guard interdiction, the cutter launched its
secret new weapon: a high-tech helicopter and a rigid-hull inflatable
boat. They closed in on the traffickers, who as usual ignored their
blue lights, sirens, and other warnings. Acting under a new policy
that allows them to use nonlethal force, a gunner aboard the Coast
Guard boat loaded the grenade launcher of his M-16 and began firing
rubber pellets at the fleeing suspects. Ducking and diving below the
gunwales, the drug runners gave up when the sixth round ricocheted
around their craft.

As the guardsmen towed the men, the boat, and 56 bales of marijuana
back to the Gallatin, the entire crew gathered at the rails to cheer
the rare victory.

The Coast Guard is hoping its new policy will mark the beginning of a
new era in which they nab more criminals than they lose. In an effort
to get the upper hand, Commandant Adm. James Loy last year OK'd a
pilot program under which the Gallatin and its sister ship, the
Seneca, were equipped with two new MH-90 helicopters and a pair of
RIBs, as the inflatables are known.

These faster vessels make it easier to catch the speedboats; new
measures-all nonlethal-help them stop suspects without killing them.
Among them: nets made of Kevlar fabric that snarl boat propellers, and
"stingball" grenades that flash and bang but release no shrapnel.

If all else fails, the unit is authorized to shoot out the boat's
engines.

"We've been trying to hit a nail with a screwdriver, not a hammer, all
these years," says the Gallatin's captain, Steve Branham. "We finally
have a tool that works," he adds, pointing out that the crew
apprehended all five smuggler boats detected over the past year; the
previous average was 1 in 10.

One day last fall, the crew was eating breakfast when they spotted
smugglers brazenly zipping by. The MH-90 sped to intercept the boat.
The smugglers ignored warning shots fired by the helicopter gunner.

So the gunner lowered his .50-caliber sniper rifle and shot out one of
the boat's engines.

The boat hobbled on defiantly, but a second shot brought it to a halt.
The Coast Guard inflatable boat closed in for arrests.

And, on a moonless night last week, MH-90 pilots and gunner donned
night vision goggles to practice homing in on their "target" with
infrared aids. The helicopter is also equipped with a video camera
that has provided crucial evidence leading 12 of 17 suspects to be
convicted or plead guilty.

"It used to be so discouraging watching them get away," says one crew
member winding up his tour, who prior to this year had only two busts
in a dozen years.

The successes helped boost the Coast Guard to a record 56 tons in drug
seizures last year, and it is on course to set a new record in 2000.

The Coast Guard has long cherished its white-hat image of rescuing
distressed seafarers, but it also has key frontline national security
missions, confronting increased migrant smuggling and seaborne
drug-trafficking. The agency's budget request for next year includes
$17.2 million for the new program.

While there's no magic bullet in the drug war, it appears the
"Coasties" have found a way to crack the go-fast problem-if Congress
agrees to foot the bill.