'OPERATION BUCKSTOP' IS MEANT TO CATCH MONEY LAUNDERERS, BUT IRRITATES
MEXICANS

HOUSTON INTERCONTINENTAL AIRPORT -- Terminal C here could be the waiting
area of any bus station in Mexico. Young men wearing Stetsons, denim
jackets and steel-toed cowboy boots slouch exhausted on vinyl seats. A
graying cop in uniform surveys the scene, and tries to make eye contact
with as many men as he can. The ones who try to look away are the ones he
will stop later, before they board their homeward-bound flights.

For U.S. Customs Service Inspector William J. Monks, Christmas season at
the airport means sweeping for money in suitcases and packages. Traffic to
Latin America is heavy during the holidays, and the 51-year old Texan with
the brushy moustache is more interested in outbound contraband than
inbound. Drug seizures make headlines, he says. But big cash seizures make
cases -- and break drug rings.

Mr. Monks and his team have plenty of routes to choose from. San Salvador
or Mexico City? San Pedro Sula or Leon? Those flights leave Terminal C
every morning, all within a space of 20 minutes. Later there's Bogota,
Guadalajara, Lima and Panama City. One carrier, Continental Airlines, hauls
an average of 10,000 passengers a day via Houston to Latin America on more
than 50 flights. Never before have so many airlines been flying to so many
of the places money launderers like to go.

"I love seizing cash from money launderers," says Mr. Monks, stretching out
the "love" in a Texan drawl. "It is like grabbing the prize at the end of a
game."

But money launderers? Rarely. Those same flights carry thousands of
hardworking immigrants on their way home. To Mexico, the annual return of
its expatriate work force represents a windfall of more than $1 billion.
And Mexican officials are angry their citizens have to run Mr. Monks's
gantlet. Last year here, out of 100,813 passengers searched, money was
seized from only one Mexican national -- a mother traveling with an infant,
who forfeited $18,924 -- in a sweep the Customs Service calls "Operation
Buckstop."

Carlos Felix, director of consular affairs for Mexico's Foreign Relations
ministry, calls it something else. "It is serious mistreatment by U.S.
authorities," he says. Cecilia Munoz of the National Council of La Raza, a
Latino organization in Washington, has another label for it: "It's racial
profiling," she says.

Customs officials say they don't engage in racial profiling. They say
immigrants aren't among those considered most likely to be lugging illegal
cash, even if they do tend to make up the majority of passengers on flights
that agents like to search.

Operation Buckstop stems from the 1970 Bank Secrecy Act, which requires
that all cash transactions exceeding $10,000 be reported to the U.S.
Treasury. International travelers crossing a U.S. border -- whether at
airports, seaports or overland -- are also required to report any sums
exceeding $10,000 that they're bringing in and out of the country.

Thanks to a booming economy, millions of undocumented Latin Americans are
working in the U.S. Many have worked in the U.S. for years, often in jobs
where they are paid in cash.

For customs agents such as Mr. Monks, separating criminal cash from the
earnings of drywall hangers, baby-sitters and busboys is a task that can be
done only through direct confrontation. That means making each passenger
walk past a checkpoint of agents empowered to search bags, open mail and,
sometimes, remove a suspect from a flight.

Surveillance starts in the terminal, as agents in plain clothes scan
waiting areas full of young men and women. Uniformed agents then take
positions in the Jetway, the retractable tunnel connecting the gate to the
aircraft. In Spanish, one agent asks each arriving passenger if he or she
has money to report. "I wish!" says Jorge Jimenez, a Houston construction
worker as moves over to a table where three more agents wait to inspect his
tote bag.

In the searches of more than 100,000 people last year, agents made just
eight seizures of illegal cash. One was the Mexican mom. The proceeds from
the other seven -- made from a Panamanian, a Guatemalan and five
Salvadorans -- totaled $137,791. So far, no seizures have been made here
this year.

Customs officials defend such paltry pickings by noting that nearly $7
million was found on people who agreed to report cash before searches,
filing disclosure forms. Then, says Mr. Monks, "they can take their money
and leave."

But considering the results, diplomats such as Mr. Felix find the effort
insulting to Mexico. Although agents no longer demand that the people they
search remove their shoes or clothing -- a source of frequent gripes in
years past -- he says they still are abusive. "Most people are scared," he
says. "When we ask them to make a formal complaint, they back off. Let's
face it, a lot of them are undocumented. They don't want problems."

Mr. Felix points out that Mexico has worked hard to get its own police to
treat homeward-bound immigrants with respect. Ten years ago, it started the
"Paisano" program, which is designed to reduce the hassles migrants face on
the way back to their families.

Central to this is an effort to raise the consciousness of Mexico's cops,
who used to be notorious for shaking down returnees, and of the immigrants
themselves who have been taught to report the cops if they do. A guidebook
handed out at Mexico's 42 U.S. consulates instructs returnees faced with
corrupt federals to "take down the name, badge number or identification
card number of the public servant."

Those guidelines aren't meant to extend to dealings with U.S. public
servants, but Los Angeles immigration attorney Andres Bustamante says they
should. Last week, two clients he represents were stopped at Kansas City
International Airport by an agent of the Drug Enforcement Agency. Four
hours later, they were allowed to board their flight to Los Angeles,
leaving behind $12,450, forfeited as the suspected proceeds of a drug sale.

"It was racism, that's all," says Ismael Jacobo, a 34-year old house
painter from a village in Michoacan state. He says half the money was his
- -- the other $6,150 belonged to his friend -- and that he was carrying it
to buy a used car in Topeka. He says he was detained at the airline counter
after paying cash for his return ticket, something he said he had to do
because he has neither a credit card nor a bank account. He concedes he has
been working in the U.S. illegally.

Drug agents confirm the seizure, adding that Mr. Jacobo can file a claim to
recover his cash. They confirm that neither man was charged with a crime.
"All the indicators that allow officers to seize money suspected to be
derived from drug trafficking were met," says DEA spokesman Terry Parham.

Mr. Jacobo doubts he will see his money again, but he plans to file a
claim. "It's common to approach Mexicans at the airport, especially this
time of year, and take their money," says Mr. Bustamante, the attorney.
"They get a receipt and go on their way. Sometimes we get the money back.
Sometimes we don't."