'SUITCASE CARTELS': MAKING THE SWITCH

Unsuspecting Traveler May Find Cache Of Drugs In Luggage At Flight's End

MEXICO CITY -- Leonardo Cardenas had high expectations when he boarded a
flight to Mexico. The respected Colombian engineer had been hired to lend
his expertise to an important project at a Mexico City amusement park.

He checked in two suitcases at Bogota's airport, one packed with piles of
research, drawings and calculations, the other filled with enough clothes
and personal items to last him the three months he expected to stay.

He never made it to the job and the documents never made it to Mexico.
Cardenas was whisked off to jail after Mexican officers found nine pounds
of heroin in a suitcase with his name on it.

He spent two months in jail before Mexican authorities cleared him after
deciding someone had substituted the heroin bag for Cardenas' suitcase. He
returned home early this year with nothing but legal bills and a
traumatized family to show for his trip.

"It was like in a movie," Cardenas said. "You don't understand what is
happening. Finally you realize the injustice of being blamed for something
you haven't done. It was as if, in a way, my life had ended."

The engineer was the apparent victim of an age-old trick that may be making
a comeback in Latin American airports: Smugglers snatch the claim check and
ID tag off the luggage of an unsuspecting traveler and attach them to a
replacement bag packed with drugs.

The scheme requires someone inside an airline, such as a baggage handler,
to switch the suitcases at the departure airport and someone else to grab
the substitute bag at the other end before it makes it onto the luggage
carrousel.

The maneuver gets around an antiterrorism practice of many airlines to not
allow their planes to take off with unidentified luggage on board. And, in
case a drug-filled suitcase is found, the blame shifts from the smugglers
to the unfortunate person whose real bag has been filched.

"When the trafficker can't get the suitcase . . . if you claim it, without
realizing it, you're claiming a suitcase full of drugs," said Mauricio
Aranguren, a Colombian journalist who knows the problem firsthand. He was
held in a Mexican jail for 20 days after smugglers pulled a switch on him
in 1995.

Drug experts say the method, which has been used since the 1970s, could be
making a comeback among dealers tapping into Colombia's growing heroin
market and cocaine smugglers filling the void left by the partial demise of
the Medellin and Cali cartels.

"We certainly see a large amount of corruption in baggage handlers and
customs agents both in Colombia and in Mexico . . . so the fact that it
could occur does not surprise me a great deal," said Bruce Bagley, a drug
expert at the University of Miami.

An agent of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration who spent 2 1/2 years
working at Bogota's El Dorado airport said there were five cocaine seizures
involving bag-switching in the second half of 1999.

One involved Gustavo Medina, a Mexican industrial engineer who was held for
several hours at Colombia's airport in September after his baggage-claim
check was found attached to a suitcase containing 80 pounds of cocaine. No
charges were ever filed.

Brent Eaton, special agent for the DEA in Miami, said recent bag-switching
incidents have been brought to the agency's attention "in several places,
and perhaps it's on the rise."

But he said reliable statistics are hard to come by.

If a suitcase full of drugs makes it through undetected, the victim whose
suitcase is replaced by a contraband bag will simply think the airline has
misplaced his luggage and will file a claim. "So it wouldn't show up in the
statistics," Eaton said.

Aranguren, who is writing a book about drug-smuggling at Bogota's airport,
said "suitcase cartels" are flourishing at Bogota's airport.

"It involves corruption among the people who handle the luggage and the
security officials," he said.

The DEA and Colombian police found significant corruption at Bogota's
airport, according to the DEA agent formerly assigned there. He said 40
employees, from baggage handlers to caterers, were identified as suspects
in cocaine seizures, and at least five were arrested.

Despite his experience, Cardenas plans to return to Mexico City to complete
his work at the amusement park. This time, though, he isn't checking any bags.

"It's something I'll get over in time," he said, "but for now I'm going to
carry my suitcases."