SMUGGLERS GO UP AGAINST CO-ORDINATED TEAMS

Ecstasy smuggling across the B.C. border has exploded, according to a
cross-border team of law enforcers.

"Blaine is a hotspot for ecstasy smuggling," said Roy Hoffman, U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement assistant special agent in
charge. "We're seeing a huge amount of ecstasy heading for points in the U.S."

He was among the officers who briefed the Cascadia Mayors Council
meeting earlier this summer in Surrey on the work of the Integrated
Border Enforcement Team (IBET), which pools policing efforts from
both sides of the border to bust smugglers.

Hoffman said it's estimated 52 per cent of the ecstasy tablets
smuggled into the U.S. arrive from B.C.

He said it's a shift from the typical smuggling pattern of Canadian
marijuana heading south and cocaine, guns and other chemicals going north.

Ecstasy is easier to transport than marijuana, Hoffman noted.

Methamphetamine component chemicals are increasingly arriving in
Vancouver from China, he added.

IBET officials recounted major drug busts of recent years -- from
last year's discovery of a tunnel crossing the border at Aldergrove
to the breakup of a helicopter pot smuggling operation based in the Okanagan.

Smugglers sometimes drive stolen vehicles at high speeds across
raspberry fields across the border, they said. Others use pleasure
boats, kayaks or drop contraband from airplanes.

But most busts involve cars or trucks crossing at points like the
Peace Arch and Pacific Highway crossing, where in 2003 officials
seized 1,871 pounds of marijuana that had been smuggled into Blaine
amid frozen raspberries.

The cargo isn't always drugs.

Surrey RCMP Supt. Bill Ard cited a human smuggling case a year ago
where people landed in Toronto, were moved to safe houses in
Vancouver and were then taken across the border, sometimes at Peace Arch park.

"That group is now out of business," Ard said.

Better technology used to find illicit cargo is making a difference,
officers said.

Scanners can now detect different densities of materials inside
sealed trucks or containers, Hoffman said. But he said adept
smugglers are finding ways to defeat the devices.

The challenge of getting the cargo across may be increasingly leading
pot growers to shift operations south of the border, he said.