DRUG SMUGGLERS, COPS MATCH WITS ALONG INTERSTATES

INDIANAPOLIS - Dean Wildauer knows it's out there.

Dangling a cigarette out the window of his Indiana State Police cruiser,
the trooper squints at the traffic roaring eastbound on Interstate 70
through a light rain.

Oh yeah, he says. It's out there.

It could be stashed in duffle bags in the back of that rented Lexus. Or
maybe tucked inside the side panels of that minivan. It could be taped
inside the tires of a new car on that car carrier or hidden in a washing
machine in that moving van.

Indiana is carved by Interstates 65, 70 and 80, earning it the title
"Crossroads of America." While it's a charming label if you are touring the
Midwest, it's a harsh reality if you're trying to stop drug traffic.

In 1919, when a young soldier named Dwight D. Eisenhower first thought up
the idea of an interstate highway system, he envisioned broad "ribbons
across the land," allowing for faster travel and military deployment.
Today, Wildauer and cops like him all over the country see the interstates
as 24-hour pipelines that supply illegal drugs to rural high schools and
big-city streets.

State troopers and southwest border agents assigned to stop the flow
coordinate their efforts through Operation Pipeline, a federal Drug
Enforcement Administration program active in every state.

Its hub is the El Paso Intelligence Center (EPIC), a one-story brick
building on the north end of Biggs Army Airfield in El Paso, Texas, where
more than 250 state and federal law enforcement officials track smugglers,
scan criminal databases to link cases and provide 24-hour intelligence to
officers in the field.

X-rays For Trucks

Those officers are equipped with fiberscopes that allow them to peer into
gas tanks, density meters that show when something's stuffed in a door or
tire, giant border X-rays that can see into tractor trailers.

Sometimes, authorities even load busted drug couriers and their vehicles
onto military cargo jets and fly them to their delivery points so
authorities can make drug deliveries and arrest those on the receiving end.

Since 1990, authorities have pulled more than 1.5 million pounds of
marijuana and more than 207,000 pounds of cocaine off U.S. highways and
interstates, according to the DEA. That includes more than 170,000 pounds
of marijuana and more than 19,000 pounds of cocaine in the first eight
months of 1998.

Still, state and federal officials estimate, nine out of 10 drug shipments
on the interstate highways get through.

The only way to dry them up, Wildauer says, would be to stop and search
every car.

In the early 1980s, state troopers in New Mexico and New Jersey noticed a
trend. More routine traffic stops along interstates were turning into
sizable drug busts. The two states independently set up highway
interdiction programs and before long saw a jump in drug seizures.

They began sharing information with other states on how to turn moving
violations into major drug arrests. In 1984, this cooperation grew into
Operation Pipeline.

The program trains officers on traffic details to look for things that
don't make sense.

Do the lug nuts look shiny? Maybe they've been removed recently to stash
drugs in the tires.

See any shiny screw heads that should be painted over? Any out-of-place
weld marks? Those could also point to hiding places.

Nearly 50 courses were taught last year, training about 4,000 officers
across the country.

But the heart of the program is the daily intelligence supplied to the
field by EPIC. This recent case from Oklahoma typifies how it works:

An Oklahoma Highway Patrol officer pulls a car over because it was weaving.
The two people in it act nervous and give conflicting stories. One says
they are coming from Dallas, the other says Houston.

Suspicious, the officer calls EPIC and asks for a check on the car and its
occupants.

EPIC has access to databases on drug cases from the FBI, DEA and U.S.
Customs. It also keeps track of all highway stops called in to the center.

The EPIC search finds that the vehicle crossed the border at Laredo, Texas,
about eight hours earlier. A drug-sniffing dog is called in and alerts
officers to the trunk. A search reveals 20 kilos of cocaine.

Calls like this pour into the center's main operations room, keeping the
phones ringing around the clock. The center receives about 30,000 calls per
year.

Despite Operation Pipeline, the drug business worth $52 billion a year in
the U.S. according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy remains
one step ahead.

Drug organizations run communications networks that tell couriers which
roads police are patrolling most. They use drivers, such as senior
citizens, who don't fit the stereotype of drug runners.

Busting Grandma

"Hauling dope, it has no race, it has no religion," Wildauer says. "Age
doesn't matter. I've locked up a grandmother and her grandkids for hauling
marijuana."

The illegal drug business pays its drivers so well, authorities say, that
most will go to jail rather than inform on higher-ups. The going rate for
transporting marijuana is around $100 per pound, with loads ranging
anywhere from a couple pounds to several hundred.

Drugs are often stashed in hidden compartments of cars or trucks, but
authorities have seen cocaine molded into pottery or even heated to a
liquid state and soaked into bulk packages of clothing.

When authorities figure out where drugs are being hidden, concealment
methods change, creating a daily cat-and-mouse game on interstates and
along the Mexican border.

Noel Ordonez, a U.S. Customs inspector with glaring eyes and a sixth sense
that goes off when something's not right, has worked three ports of entry
along the Mexican border, questioning thousands of drivers crossing each
year. He loves outsmarting drug couriers, but he knows the multibillion
dollar drug business is beating him and everyone else along the 2,000-mile
border senseless.

This doesn't make Ordonez want to give up.

"Every 100 pounds of pot I catch is another 100 pounds that won't wind up
in some high school somewhere," he says as another big truck pulls up to
his booth. "And I know how to find the dope."

Ordonez looks for drivers who won't make eye contact, the ones tapping the
steering wheel nervously. He questions drivers if he sees a key chain with
only one key on it. Why no house key? He is suspicious of those who seem
unfamiliar with their vehicles.

Along with cars, about 1,000 commercial trucks pass through El Paso's
Ysleta Port of Entry each day. More and more, drug dealers are using big
trucks to conceal their goods.

When Ordonez is suspicious of a truck, he sends it to the docks to be
unloaded and searched. Some trucks are driven through a massive X-ray that
scans the tractor and trailer. On average, about 100 trucks a day will be
scrutinized; the rest pass through unsearched.

At the Paso del Norte Port of Entry, which links downtown El Paso with the
bustling Mexican city of Juarez, 10 lanes of automobiles stretch in lines
several blocks long. Inspectors in dark-blue uniforms move through the
lines, tapping their hands on the sides of vehicles, pounding small hammers
against tires and hunching over to point flashlights into wheel wells.

Employees of the drug smugglers watch, noticing which inspectors are being
the most thorough. The men use cell phones to tell couriers which lanes to
avoid.

A banged-up GMC van with tan and burgundy stripes pulls up to a customs
booth. The driver nervously rolls down the window, releasing a strong scent
of air freshener. Is he trying to hide something?

An inspector directs the van to a parking area. A drug-sniffing dog circles
the vehicle, stops midway down the driver's side and barks.

Inspectors rip out the van's inside panels, exposing 20 bricks of marijuana
about 140 pounds worth nearly $500,000 on the street.

Andrew Turner congratulates his dog, Willie, on the find and gives
high-fives to the other inspectors gathered to check out the score.

"This," Turner says, "makes it all worthwhile."

But the inspectors are aware that while they were tied up with this bust,
several other loads probably went through. Smugglers, an agent explains,
will sometimes allow themselves to get caught with a load of pot so a
colleague can sneak a stash of cocaine through while the inspectors are busy.

"We know that they're doing it," the agent says, "but how can we stop all
of them?"