MIAMI DRUG SEIZURE MARKS RETURN OF DOPE-ON-A-ROPE

MIAMI (Reuters) - The seizure of $40 million worth of cocaine from a
freighter in the Miami River marks the return of ``dope-on-a-rope,'' a
smuggling tactic used by Caribbean drug runners in the 1980s, the U.S.
Customs Service said Wednesday.

The capture of 5,137 pounds of cocaine was one of the largest hauls in
south Florida in recent years, officials told a news conference alongside
the crowded river in the heart of Miami, with the blue-hulled freighter
Isamar as a backdrop.

``South Florida is back in the narcotics trade,'' Customs special agent
Raphael Lopez said.

Agents said the discovery of the cocaine and arrest of 13 crew -- nationals
of Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and Peru -- was the result
of a year-long investigation.

The 86 bales of cocaine were packed for offloading using a method U.S.
agents refer to as dope-on-a-rope, commonplace during the heyday of
Colombian cocaine cowboys in the 1980s when Miami was the key U.S.
importation point for illicit South American narcotics before smugglers
shifted to the U.S.-Mexico border.

Hundreds of kilo-sized (2.2-pound) bricks of cocaine were bundled into
white plastic bags trussed with rope. Individual bundles were tied together
like beads on a string, officials said.

In the 1980s, smugglers on large ``mother ships'' would transport the
cocaine from South America to U.S. coastal waters, where they would dump
the ``dope-on-a-rope'' into the waters of the Atlantic, officials said.

Smaller ``go-fast'' speedboats would descend on the cocaine, bales tied
together to keep them from floating in all directions. Each boat's crew
would snip off its share of the bales and speed toward delivery points on
shore.

``It has been a while since we've seen dope-on-a-rope,'' Lopez said.

Acting on intelligence reports, agents boarded the 263-foot
Panamanian-registered Isamar Friday about 40 miles south of Haiti as it
headed toward the United States from Venezuela, officials said.

They escorted the ship to Miami, where inspectors found the cocaine late
Tuesday along with empty propane tanks in one of 35 shipping containers on
the vessel.

The cocaine would be worth $39.7 million wholesale in south Florida,
officials said.

Officials said seizures of 22,000 pounds of cocaine this year reaffirmed
their belief that Colombian drug cartels shifted back to Caribbean
smuggling routes when the United States stepped up enforcement along the
California border with Mexico.

On Aug. 7, agents found 1,100 pounds of cocaine on the Honduran freighter
Apemagu at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and on July 21, 1,550 pounds were
discovered on the Belize-registered Nina N in the Miami River.

^REUTERS@

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski