Next: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00/n099/a02.html

A CONTEST OF WITS AT U.S. BORDER

In Cars or Inside Bodies - Dead or Alive - Runners Will Hide Drugs Anywhere

Smugglers will do anything, use anyone, to get drugs into the United States.

They stitch cash into a cadaver and drive across the border.

They hide a load of marijuana under the seat of a car and place a sick old
man on top, his intravenous drip by his side.

They hide drugs on their own kids, or hire poor children off the streets.
Kids, they rationalize, won't be punished much if they're caught.

The Tactics

They buy hair spray, empty the cans and stuff drugs inside, or they cut
open boxes of Tide, empty most of the detergent and replace it with drug
cash to send south.

They hollow out car doors, the backs of seats and the insides of cushions.
They hide pot in removable dashboards, in false pickup truck beds and fake
fenders, in tires, around motors and over transmissions.

They buy a new Nissan Sentra and weld vacuum-sealed metal containers, each
containing 14 pounds of cocaine, to wheel rims. They buy a used Ford
Explorer, weld a small fuel container inside the gas tank, then jam the
rest of the tank with 50 pounds of cocaine.

They build false ceilings into tractor-trailers, false walls into railroad
cars and false floors into airplanes.

They fly bales of marijuana over the desert and kick them out to allies
waiting below.

They tunnel under the border and into U.S. homes, hoisting bundles of
cocaine to allies waiting above.

Even their own bodies are not sacred.

Hikers strap 30- to 50-pound bales to their backs and navigate perilous
desert and mountain trails into Arizona. They conceal their tracks every
way possible, crossing dirt border roads on planks - even pole vaulting
across.

They hide everything from heroin to anabolic steroids in the hollowed heels
of running shoes. They stuff balloons of cocaine into every human orifice -
or swallow them, and hope they pass through their bodies before the
balloons burst.

They tape cash to their torsos and cocaine to their crotches.

One man rolled an old tire across the Naco border road and let it flop to
the ground in a dusty American trailer court. A Border Patrol agent
checking it out could hardly lift the tire. It was stuffed with drugs.

But unlike the tire roller, most smugglers are using increasingly
sophisticated ways to send hot cargoes over the line, said Jesus Cruz,
chief Customs inspector at Nogales' commercial port.

And with the increase in border traffic spurred by the North American Free
Trade Agreement, "they're even using (legitimate) cargo to hide drugs,"
Cruz said.

The Hiding Spot

Last year, inspectors were suspicious of two tractor diesel engines headed
to Michigan for refurbishing. Disassembling the motors, they found the
pistons and oil pans missing. Packed tight in their place: a load of cocaine.

That kind of creativity is no longer unusual. Inspectors found electrical
transformers headed to Fargo, N.D., gutted and refilled with cocaine. On
one memorable occasion, Nogales inspectors drilled into a northbound lumber
load and found the timber had been hollowed and stuffed with more than
1,000 pounds of cocaine.

Customs Inspector Peter Bachelier, an expert on rail smuggling, said
traffickers have been known to bury narcotics in the bottoms of U.S.-bound
hopper cars loaded with commodities. They've hidden loads in or on brand
new Ford Escorts being delivered by rail from Hermosillo to Arizona. Now,
every train and its cargo are searched at the border.

Yuma police Lt. Doug Lee said it's impossible to profile smugglers because
their tactics are so varied.

Sometimes, they use old junkers and sometimes brand new cars to drive drugs
across the border. The drivers usually know very little about who the drugs
came from or where they're going. The system keeps Mexican sources and U.S.
warehouses from being discovered if the drugs are busted en route, Lee said.

Often, a small load is sent across the border near a big load, with
smugglers using it to distract inspectors.

The Decoy

On a cool evening last February, Douglas Customs Inspector Jim Power had
his dog named Once sniffing for dope haulers.

Cars in seven lanes were backed up into Agua Prieta, spewing fumes. It was
quiet until a young Hispanic suddenly leaped from a beat-up Mazda near the
inspection booth and took off running south.

Uniformed men and women swarmed the car, tapping it with density meters,
looking underneath with mirrors, reaching behinds seats.

They rolled the Mazda aside for a more thorough check as Once moved in,
tail wagging. The dog went nuts around the left front bumper, scratching
and whining.

The hood popped open and a single brick of marijuana rested in plain view
behind the headlight. Instead of celebrating, one of the inspectors
shouted, "It's a decoy. Stop the lines! Close it down!"

Within minutes, scores of cars were backed up and dogs were running up and
down the lines.

Inspector Clarissa Velasco used a fiber-optic medical scope to peer inside
the Mazda's gas tank. Others combed the sedan's interior, finding only a
beer can and a key, still in the ignition. That was another tip-off: Most
people have a bunch of keys on their chain.

A second brick of pot was in the trunk.

"This is a throwaway," Velasco said. "I'll betcha a big load of coke went
in right ahead of this, and we lost it."

Everyone nodded. The Mazda and cannabis were sacrificed by smugglers,
written off as a cost of doing business.

Soon, traffic was moving again. The inspectors took their posts, waiting
for the next load.

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