U.S. Using Armed Choppers Against Drug Traffickers

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has started deploying armed
helicopters to intercept traffickers running drugs across the Caribbean in
high-speed boats, U.S. officials said Monday,

The secret deployment of armed aircraft by the U.S. Coast Guard over the
last 10 months has resulted in the seizure of a record 53 tons of Colombian
cocaine heading for U.S. cities.

Since late May, helicopters with large caliber guns manned by sharpshooters
have stopped four drug-running boats carrying 650 pounds of cocaine and
2,000 pounds of marijuana.

``Let this be a warning to all drug traffickers. We will hunt you down. We
will put you behind bars. We will shut you down, and your hideous trade,''
Transport Secretary Rodney Slater said in announcing the hitherto secret
action.

U.S. counter-narcotics agencies estimate that 85 percent of the drugs
coming into the United States across the Caribbean are transported in small
hard-to-intercept speedboats.

The Coast Guard said pursuits of drug-running boats are lengthy and rarely
result in arrests because smugglers jettison the evidence or escape to
foreign territorial waters.

The new U.S. tactic is to use armed helicopters to either intimidate or
disable boats suspected of running cocaine, heroin, marijuana and other
illegal drugs to the United States.

On Aug. 16, Coast Guard helicopters intercepted a speedboat suspected of
smuggling drugs about 50 miles off the coast of Jamaica.

The helicopters first dropped flash bombs and fired warning shots, then
stopped the vessel by firing disabling shots into it engine, officials said
at a news conference announcing the new tactic, called Operation New Frontier.

Coast Guard officials declined to say how many helicopters are being used
in the anti-drug operation.