The task is gargantuan: Check for contraband in the cargo of 37 passenger
planes and 11 cargo planes landing at O'Hare International Airport over 24
hours that ended at midnight Thursday.

"You're talking about looking for the needle in the haystack. . . . It's a
tough job," says Larry Shirk, acting port director for the U.S. Customs
Service at O'Hare, as he watches a hydraulic lift lower another huge pallet
of boxes and crates from the yawning cargo bay of a Boeing 747 just in from
Hong Kong.

Chicago's O'Hare is one of the largest in-bound customs ports in the nation,
with 6,552 international flights a month and 1 million pounds of cargo a
day. In addition to drugs, agents are looking for undeclared U.S. cash;
banned plant and animal life; and counterfeit products, such as knock-off
Gucci goods and bogus Beanie Babies.

There's no way Customs agents can look at it all. On an average day, they
rely on analyses of brokers' shipping documents; anomalies, such as goods
shipped from a country in which they are not made; and other suspect signs,
such as huge quantities of personal effects shipped air express.

But this was not an average day. The intense search is part of the Customs
Service's 6-month Brass Ring Initiative, aimed at interdicting narcotics but
is the first time in the operation that Customs has tried to check every
foreign flight that arrives in a 24-hour period.

Shirk is joined by Michael Johnson, who supervises the service's contraband
enforcement team at O'Hare, and Jeff Gabel, the supervising canine officer
for the service in Chicago.

Gabel has been at this task since midnight Wednesday. He and Johnson are
coordinating 78 officers and 19 canine teams, 14 of which are from local law
enforcement agencies in the south suburbs, Indiana, and Cook and DuPage
Counties.

Even with this much help, the task is a daunting one. Skilled smugglers, the
three agents know, are not stupid.

To give them the upper hand in this cat-and-mouse game, the agents have at
their disposal an array of sophisticated equipment.

A van full of hyper-hardened tools, such as air chisels, can cut a steel
cargo container--or an airplane--in half in minutes. Electronic measuring
tapes and high-tech devices similar to a stud sensor can detect a false wall
or floor. A $193,000 X-ray van with a conveyer belt shows the contents of
boxes and luggage in detail.

And then there is the ion scanner, on loan from the 126th Wing of the
Illinois Air National Guard. It resembles and works like a hand-held vacuum,
sucking up minute traces of narcotics--or explosives--from luggage or
packages. Its filter is then fed into a computer, which provides a readout
of the substance's properties.

For the suburban law teams, the 24-hour blitz is a chance to try out their
drug-sniffing dogs in a different milieu. Falco, a German shepherd with the
DuPage County sheriff's office, and Manto, a shepherd with the Hammond,
Ind., police, precariously make their way across the floor of the 747's
cargo hold, which has a thousand nooks and crannies.

Smugglers have not secreted any drugs here. So to keep the dogs on their
paws, they are allowed to discover planted packages of hashish. As a reward,
they get to play with a favorite toy.

Later, in a warehouse where cargo from the 747 has been hauled, the dogs are
turned loose on a crate of personal effects in which agents found a bathroom
deodorizer and perfumed candles. Drug smugglers often include such items, as
well as coffee, cayenne pepper and curry, to bolix a dog's sense of smell.

The agents won't say whether the 24-hour search Thursday turned up any drugs
or other contraband, not wanting to tip off anyone to whom the goods are
being shipped.

Shirk figures that even if nothing is found after an exhaustive search, it
says something for the deterrent effect of the more routine efforts.

"If you've done a good exam and find nothing, that's a valid statistic right
there," he said.

Checked-by: Melodi Cornett