DRUGS AND CASH SEIZED IN CROSS-BORDER BUST

Dozens of people have been charged after a 30-day police surveillance
operation put a huge dent in the growing cross-border trade of B.C.-grown
marijuana for cocaine and cash.

A team of Canadian and U.S. police officers seized 158 kilograms of
B.C.-grown marijuana, 17 kilograms of cocaine, $29,453 US in cash and 17
vehicles during the operation along the border from Langley to Chilliwack,
RCMP Corporal Pete Thompson said Thursday.

The Integrated Border Enforcement Team also charged 39 people with smuggling
drugs, alcohol, weapons and people over the border.

The cross-border exchange of B.C. marijuana for cocaine from the U.S. has
increased over the past year, Thompson said.

"Eighteen to 24 months ago, all we were seizing was liquor and tobacco. Now
it's drugs or drugs and currency."

In May 1998, police arrested one man after he was found walking down a trail
near Abbotsford with more than $65,000 US in his backpack.

Thompson said the trade is conducted by organized crime groups based in
Vancouver and Seattle.

The trade typically takes place on rural roads or remote trails near the
U.S. border. Thompson said the cocaine is usually sent north after the
completion of a shipment of B.C. marijuana destined for the southern U.S.

U.S. police officials have estimated the street value of the seized drugs at
$2.2 million US.

Thompson said the main value of the border crackdown will be a reduction in
drug-related property crime.

Of the 39 people arrested during the surveillance operation, 25 were
connected to two attempts to smuggle Korean nationals across the border into
the U.S.

"These were Koreans who got off the plane at Vancouver International Airport
and were taken immediately by organized crime groups to the border,"
Thompson said. "They had paid tens of thousands of dollars [for] a chance of
a new life in the U.S."