DRUGS FLOOD IN FROM MEXICO

Increase In Traffic On Land And Sea Alarms U.S. Officials

MEXICO CITY - Cocaine and marijuana seizures in the southwestern United
States and along Mexico's Pacific coast have escalated dramatically in the
past two years, alarming U.S. law enforcement authorities who say Mexican
traffickers are sending greater quantities and larger loads of drugs into
the United States.

Seizures of marijuana by U.S. agencies along the southwestern U.S. border,
where 70 percent of all illicit drugs enter the country, were up as much as
33 percent over last year, according to U.S. drug interdiction agencies.
Between 1991 and 1998, seizures have jumped from 113 tons to 720 tons. At
the same time, cocaine loads off Mexico's Pacific coast appear to have
increased dramatically, and this year the U.S. Coast Guard made the largest
cocaine hauls in its history in both the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean.

The heavier flow of drugs has exacerbated ongoing problems of trust and
cooperation between U.S. and Mexican authorities, and is particularly
troubling to U.S. law enforcement in light of new statistics showing rising
marijuana use among American teenagers.

The rising number of seizures reflects not only greater smuggling activity
but also dramatic increases in drug production in Colombia and Mexico,
according to U.S. officials and reports from law enforcement agencies. U.S.
authorities estimated that they capture 10 to 15 percent of all drugs
smuggled into the country. While many officials credited improved
coordination among U.S. law enforcement agencies for the increase in
seizures, they said the trend clearly indicates more drugs are arriving in
the United States.

The year's mounting tally of drug seizures, along with new U.S.
calculations of significantly increased cocaine production in Colombia and
expanding opium poppy and marijuana production in Mexico, are sending
"shock waves through the system," said a senior U.S. official involved in
monitoring drug trafficking.

Mexican authorities disputed some of the U.S. conclusions, but said they
would not compile Mexican seizure totals until next month and declined to
discuss this year's trends until their figures are made public. Earlier
this year, Mexico's top anti-drug official, Mariano Herran Salvatti, said
he believed that cocaine shipments into Mexico had dropped 50 percent this
year, but he did not provide detailed supporting data.

Herran said at a news conference this summer that marijuana and poppy
yields were up in Mexico because eradication was becoming increasingly
difficult, noting that "the illicit plantations are turning ever more away
from populated areas and into federal lands in the mountains."

Mexican drug cartels appear to be reorganizing their operations to improve
the transport of South American cocaine and Mexican marijuana and heroin to
the United States at a time when many Mexican anti-drug units are in
disarray and have made little progress in targeting the country's biggest
cartel leaders, according to U.S. law enforcement agencies.

"The drug groups are flexible and innovative and are using ever more
sophisticated and well-organized counter-surveillance and
counterintelligence," according to a new U.S. government intelligence
assessment. "They are constantly . . . identifying and exploiting law
enforcement predictability, patterns, weaknesses, vulnerabilities and
routines."

While politicians at the highest levels of both countries' governments
continue to say that cooperation has improved, Richard A. Fiano, chief of
operations for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, told a
congressional subcommittee in September, "Until such time that adequate
anti-corruption assurances and safeguards can be implemented, DEA will
exercise extreme caution in sharing sensitive information with our Mexican
counterparts."

Fiano described the "investigative achievements" of Mexico's most elite
anti-drug units against major cartels as "minimal." A special fugitive
apprehension team created by Mexico's anti-narcotics agency to track down
the leaders of the Tijuana-based Arellano-Felix cartel, one of Mexico's two
largest drug mafias, "has not participated in any significant enforcement
activity," Fiano said.

Mexican political leaders this year became so frustrated with failed
attempts to clean up the country's corrupt law enforcement agencies that
they created a new national police force for fighting drug trafficking and
other crime. Top political leaders also pledged a multimillion-dollar
increase in support to the military and existing civilian agencies for
counter-narcotics efforts.

The surge in Mexican marijuana shipments comes in the face of new U.S.
government statistics showing that marijuana use among American youth
between the ages of 12 and 17 has doubled in the past six years. In the
first nine months of 1999, marijuana seizures nationwide were up 29
percent, from 513 tons during the same period last year to 663 tons this year.

Although those figures include domestically produced marijuana, the seizure
figures for Mexican marijuana were up by even more staggering amounts.
Border-wide seizures were up about 33 percent, and in southeastern Texas --
which has become the hottest transit zone on the international boundary in
recent months -- marijuana seizures were up nearly 70 percent over last
year, according to law enforcement agencies.

In February, five tons of Mexican marijuana were seized at one southern
Texas residence, and a month later another five tons were captured at a
second home.

"Despite record border seizures, Mexican marijuana remains readily
available," DEA officials wrote in the intelligence report. "Mexico-based
trafficking organizations . . . have enhanced and strengthened their
production, smuggling and distribution capabilities to ensure a continuous
supply of drugs to U.S. communities."

At the same time, cocaine loads also have expanded dramatically, according
to U.S. records. Cocaine loads have become so large off Mexico's Pacific
coast that the U.S. Coast Guard is planning to launch unprecedented armed
helicopter assaults against boat traffickers similar to a highly classified
program tested in the Caribbean earlier this year against smaller,
high-powered, high-speed boats carrying drugs from Colombia, according to
Coast Guard officials.

While Colombian cocaine traffickers and the Mexican cartels that handle the
transportation of their cocaine were first detected using the wide open
Pacific sea lanes in the mid-1990s, law enforcement officials said they
were stunned by the large caches discovered in recent months.

On Aug. 13, the Coast Guard nabbed a Mexican shark fishing boat stuffed
with 10.5 tons of cocaine about 500 miles off Acapulco. It was the largest
cocaine bust ever made off the Mexican Pacific coast and the second biggest
sea seizure ever by U.S. law enforcement.

On June 15, the Coast Guard seized 7.7 tons of cocaine in another Mexican
fishing vessel 500 miles offshore.

Overall, Coast Guard cocaine seizures in the Pacific and Caribbean were up
35 percent this year compared with 1998, agency officials said. While U.S.
law enforcement agencies working along the southwest border have been
suspicious of cooperating with their Mexican counterparts, U.S. Coast Guard
authorities said cooperation with the Mexican navy in maritime seizures has
never been greater.

As for opium and heroin, the cultivation of the opium poppy in Mexico has
increased 30 percent since 1990. Although Mexican authorities have
eradicated more acres of poppies each year, they have been unable to keep
up with improved yields. In 1998, Mexican authorities reported yields 25
percent higher than in 1997, according to figures provided to the State
Department by Mexico.

"The increase in poppy cultivation is particularly worrisome as it led to
an increase in heroin production," the State Department wrote in this
year's drug assessment of Mexico.

At the same time, Mexican seizures of opium in 1998 were less than half of
those in 1997, cocaine seizures were the lowest in four years, and heroin
seizures were one-third the amounts of three years ago. Marijuana seizures
have continued to increase slightly every year.