AGENTS: PUERTO RICO A HUB IN EAST COAST U.S. DRUG TRADE

MIAMI - Law enforcement experts who combat drug smuggling in the
Caribbean warned Congress Monday that Puerto Rico is awash in cocaine
and the drug problem on the island is approaching crisis
proportions.

``Today, cocaine and heroin traffickers from Colombia have transformed
Puerto Rico into the largest staging area in the Caribbean for illicit
drugs destined for the U.S. market,'' said Michael S. Vigil, who runs
the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's operations in the Caribbean.

Vigil was one of four senior U.S. law enforcement officers who were
called to testify Tuesday by U.S. Rep. Dan Burton, the Indiana
Republican who convened a hearing of his House Government Reform
Committee in nearby Sweetwater, Fla.

Burton used two days of committee hearings in south Florida - where a
large Cuban exile community harbors a deep resentment for the
government of Fidel Castro - as a platform to showcase evidence of
narcotics smuggling through Cuba while complaining that President
Clinton is not doing enough about it.

Playing a theme that resonates deeply among the local Cuban community,
Burton charged that Clinton is downplaying evidence of Cuban drug
trafficking so he can win congressional support for normalizing
relations with Cuba.

But the problems that large-scale international narcotics trafficking
have created in Puerto Rico were spotlighted as well Tuesday and were
never in dispute, even if Cuba's role in the problem was.

The most recent figures compiled by a variety of law enforcement
agencies show that one-third of all the cocaine coming into the United
States is ferried over four routes across the Caribbean. One of those
routes, from South America through Puerto Rico and the nearby U.S.
Virgin Islands, accounts for 6 percent of the total.

Also, Jose A. Fuentes-Agostini, Puerto Rico's outgoing attorney
general, complained to the committee Tuesday that the figures compiled
by law enforcement agencies on cocaine shipment through his island are
unrealistically low.

The fastest-growing drop-off point for Colombian cocaine bound for the
United States is the island of Hispaniola, which contains Haiti and
the Dominican Republic, two improverished nations with little
effective law enforcment.

Much of the cocaine from Hispaniola moves into Puerto Rico before
being shipped on to U.S. East Coast cities, Fuentes-Agostini said.
And, he said, the amount of narcotics moving from Hispaniola to Puerto
Rico is underreported. A significant quantity is difficult to report
because it is carried by illegal aliens and alien smugglers who travel
the 90 miles by sea from the Dominican Republic to western Puerto Rico
in high speed wooden boats, he said.

The trip, in 30-foot-long wooden skiffs that don't reflect radar,
takes five hours, he said. It is so successful that the smugglers
consider the boats themselves disposable.

``The number of go-fast boats found abandoned in Puerto Rico by the
U.S. Customs Service and other agencies definitely supports our
intelligence that smugglers consider these to be disposable smuggling
platforms,'' John C. Varrone, executive director of eastern U.S.
operations for the Customs Service, told the committee.

Puerto Rico's emerging role as an East Coast narcotics hub has created
enormous problems for the island's inhabitants. Eighty percent of the
homicides on Puerto Rico are drug-related, many the result of battles
between rival syndicates who are distribution agents for Colombian
cartels.

In addition, the enormous wealth of the cartels have generated rampant
corruption. San Juan is the third-busiest seaport in North America and
the 14th-busiest in the world.

``Criminal organizations have utilized their financial capabilities to
corrupt mechanics, longshoremen, airline employees, ticket-counter
agents, as well as government officials and others whose corrupt
practices broaden the scope of the trafficking,'' said Vigil, the
DEA's Caribbean supervisor.

Fuentes-Agostini suggested the narcotics problem in Puerto Rico is
much like that in south Florida in the 1980s, when battles between
cocaine cowboys and high-tech police officers gave rise to popular
movies and a television show. He said Puerto Rico is doing what
Florida did to solve its problem: call attention to it and spend money
on it.

Already, the Puerto Rican commonwealth and a variety of U.S. law
enforcement agencies have increased spending and developed a number of
law enforcemnt initiatives. Puerto Rico is expanding its police force
and Burton promised to help increase the number of federal judges on
the island from the existing six to nine.

Still, a problem remains, the experts testified. Mainland law
enforcement officers from agencies like Customs, the DEA and FBI
fiercely resist transfer to Puerto Rico. When assigned there, they
work toward quick reassignment.

``Such quality of life issues as inadequate public services,
unreliable utilities, limited accessibility of medical services, the
high cost of living, an exclusionary social structure, limited
availability of appropriate schools for children and the high
incidence of crime have contributed to early turnover and family
separations,'' Vigil said.

Customs and the DEA are trying to develop contractual, financial
incentives to induce qualified drug agents to work in Puerto Rico.

The conservative, Republican members of the committee Tuesday spent as
much time condemning Castro and President Clinton as they did
discussing Puerto Rico.

Members, particularly Burton, tried to pressure DEA experts into
labeling Cuba a major distributor of narcotics, something the U.S.
Department of State has refused to do.

The law enforcement witnesses said there is evidence suggesting Cuba
is active in drug smuggling, but said there are fewer signs of
trafficking there than there are in other countries.

``At this point I don't have evidence of organizations shipping huge
volumes of cocaine to Europe and the U.S. through Cuba,'' William E.
Ledwith, chief of international operations for the DEA, testified.

But Ledwith said he has evidence that traffickers do move drugs
through Cuban territory and are rarely molested by the Cuban government.

``I do not believe that Castro has done everything that he can,''
Ledwith said. ``We have heard many times from undercover contacts that
the crooks feel very comfortable in Cuba. They feel free and in no
danger of apprehension.''

Burton repeatedly pressed Ledwith to concede that a $1.5 billion
shipment of cocaine, under consignment to a Cuban company when seized
aboard a container ship in Colombia in December 1998, was bound for
U.S. distribution.

Ledwith refused, saying there is preliminary evidence the shipment -
7.25 metric tons - was bound for Europe.

``If we had indications that that shipment of 7.25 metric tons was
headed toward the U.S.,'' Ledwith said, ``I would be standing here
before you and telling you that.''