COCAINE TRAFFICKERS LEARN TO FOOL DRUG-SNIFFING DOGS, OFFICIAL SAYS

WASHINGTON - Drug traffickers have discovered a new chemical process that
will allow them to slip cocaine past drug-sniffing dogs and the eyes of
casual observers, the White House's director of drug-control policy says.

Adding charcoal and other chemicals to cocaine will transform it into a
black substance that has no smell and does not react when subjected to the
usual chemical tests for cocaine, retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey told a Senate
subcommittee yesterday.

"They turn this stuff into black brick, but you can mold it into something
that looks like metal moldings," McCaffrey said. "The dog won't smell it.
... It doesn't smell; it doesn't react to chemical tests the same way."

Once the drug arrives at its destination, high-level drug traffickers use
acetone or another chemical to turn it back into cocaine paste.

"So you have a very clever new initiative on the part of drug smuggling,"
McCaffrey told reporters after testifying before the Senate Armed Services
Committee's panel on emerging threats and capabilities.

Traffickers, usually from Colombia, also have moved cocaine in other colors,
including red, yellow and blue, he said. Authorities also have seen altered
cocaine that looks like transparent sheets of acetate.

Over the past year, law enforcement authorities have begun to seize
shipments of the altered drug in several countries, including Spain, Albania
and the Netherlands. U.S. authorities are seeing limited amounts in this
country, McCaffrey said.

Drug traffickers are relying on other new technologies, McCaffrey said. For
example, "super go-fast boats" - vessels that can easily outpace Coast Guard
cutters - are being manufactured on the west coast of Colombia to be used as
drug transports in the Caribbean and eastern
Pacific.

"One such boat is reportedly capable of carrying a two-ton payload at high
speeds," McCaffrey said. "It's now become the principal tool of drug
smuggling now employed by these criminal organizations. It's the
major tool."

U.S. officials have come up with ways to stop the boat, but McCaffrey told
reporters, "I shouldn't tell you what those things are. Some of them will
start showing up in the coming weeks, and they're going to work."