HIGH-TECH FOILS DRUG SMUGGLERS

WASHINGTON -- Customs inspectors peering into the tractor-trailer at the
Colombia-Solidarity Bridge along the U.S. border saw nothing more
threatening than a cargo of cookies.

But after passing the truck through an X-ray machine the size of a car wash,
agents caught a look at the real treat stashed in the truck: more than 5,600
pounds of marijuana.

The $7.8 million bust in February at the bridge near Laredo, Texas, offers
just one glimpse of how officials along the border and in local communities
are taking advantage of advanced technology to outsmart drug traffickers and
criminals.

"We're not out to push the state-of-the-art for its own sake," says Ray
Mintz, director of the applied technology division of the U.S. Customs
Service.

But with such tools as a thermal imaging camera -- no bigger than the
average camcorder -- police officers can find out whether someone is growing
marijuana at home or is handing someone a plastic bag containing narcotics.

They can even do it in the dark.

The thermal camera equipment relies on very slight differences in
temperature to create an image with light and dark contrasts. The tool is so
sensitive it can detect a change of a quarter of a degree. So if a suspect
carrying drugs decided to rid himself of the evidence, the drugs -- still
warm from being close to his body -- would show up a different shade than
the screen background. Greenhouse-like lights needed to produce marijuana
inside a home give off excess heat that the camera picks up.

The device has made work less precarious for police officers in Brownsville,
Texas, who patrol the border and sometimes face gunfire from smugglers
bringing in marijuana at night.

"Usually, they can see us before we see them," said Ben Reyna, chief of the
Brownsville police. "Now, we're starting to turn that around."

The thermal camera is the most requested item in the Office of National Drug
Control Policy's technology transfer program. Funded by Congress since 1998,
the program gives state and local police, like Reyna's unit, advanced
equipment from the federal government. More than 110 of the $13,000 cameras
have been provided to law enforcement officials nationwide.

"We know these systems work, and we know the cops needs these tools," said
Barry McCaffrey, the administration's drug control policy director. He is
seeking more money for the program.

Other innovations have focused on the same goal of giving law enforcement a
better and faster glimpse of a situation. Wearing a tactical video device
mounted on a black-armored vest, officers on a drug interdiction team can
run through a home and give teammates sitting in a van outside an exact peek
at the inside layout and any possible suspects.

Developed for the U.S. Coast Guard, the 6-pound equipment set features a
camera the size of a grapefruit atop the vest's shoulder. A communications
system is tucked into a pocket on the back. Color images that can be
encrypted are transmitted to PCs at another location.

The U.S. Customs service still relies on its mainstay -- X-rays -- to
inspect drugs or other smuggled goods. But these systems use four or more
times as much energy as the machines that scan luggage at the airport.

The cargo X-ray machine along the Southwest border can scan a 40-foot truck
in minutes. A driver brings his truck onto a moving platform, where the
vehicle is dragged between two X-ray systems looking for hidden goods.

The machines -- which cost about $3.5 million each -- can catch fake walls
or other compartments stashed with illegal drugs. One tractor passing
through the X-ray at the Bridge of the Americas in El Paso was found to have
several hundred pounds of cocaine concealed in its front tires.

With seven such systems in place, Customs officials conducted 57,000
examinations in fiscal year 1998, seizing 23,000 pounds of drugs, Mintz
said. By August, railroad cars crossing the border at Laredo will pass
through a similar system.

A minibuster density meter -- about the size of a chalkboard eraser -- also
helps to detect whether drugs might be hidden in surfaces.

Not everyone is impressed by the new advances. Some immigrant rights groups
say money and attention devoted to improving technology could be used to
boost basic conditions under which migrants are found and deported.

"The border control strategy has been very long on high-tech, but very short
on human decency," said Claudia Smith, border project director of the
California Rural Legal Aid Assistance Foundation. Night-vision goggles and
special censors can't make up for the lack of working vehicles and holding
areas in which to place migrants, she said. "Maybe there can be some more
balance."