WOMEN RECRUITED BY DRUG TRAFFICKERS

MIAMI -- Canadian women are increasingly being recruited by drug
traffickers who use their "innocent" reputation with border guards to
smuggle drugs, U.S. federal officials say.

Following vacations to Jamaica, four Ontario women since March have pleaded
guilty in Miami for conspiring to import cocaine by swallowing the
substance wrapped in condoms.

"Most view Canadians as innocent," said Varouj Pogharian, RCMP liaison in
Miami. "They can pass easily through the borders -- more so than a
Colombian. Customs officers say Canadians don't smuggle drugs. We are
looked upon as good citizens."

This month, in a Miami federal courthouse, St. Catharines, Ont., resident
Julie Marie Hill pleaded guilty to charges of importing .702 kilograms of
cocaine. Ms. Hill said a Toronto-based drug trafficker known only as 'D'
solicited her help after she expressed to him her financial worries.

Ms. Hill has been dependent on family benefits since the birth of her
three-year-old daughter, Regine.

The cocaine, worth about $30,000, was intended for distribution in Toronto.
Ms. Hill said she expected to receive payment of $3,000 upon delivery.

"I wanted a future for my family," said Ms. Hill, 21, from the Miami
federal detention centre, where she will stay until her sentencing hearing
later this summer. "I wanted to study and be a lawyer, but the bills kept
piling up. I couldn't get ahead. I didn't think of the consequences. Now my
life is destroyed. I don't even know what to say to my daughter."

Bruce Bagley, former director of the North-South Center for Drug
Trafficking, says he can understand why traffickers are targeting Canadian
women. Canadians regularly take winter vacations to the Caribbean Islands,
where a large portion of the cocaine is now stockpiled. Caucasian,
middle-class women, especially those who travel with children, are not
considered drug smugglers, said Mr. Bagley.

"Drug traffickers will use anyone they can get their hands on," said Mr. Bagley.

"They target a population and when the trend is discovered, they move on.
It used to be Colombian peasants. There was a time when it was pregnant
women. I've even heard of seniors and children being used."

Drug enforcement officers were aware of the use of drug carriers as early
as 1976 when a U.S. grand jury convened hearings to look into the
Colombian-based Medellin cartel, said Mr. Bagley. Yet, during most of the
1980s, drug carriers were less frequently used as the Colombian cartels
undertook large-scale smuggling operations using privately owned ships and
airplanes. The decimation of the Cali and Medellin cartels in the latter
1980s and early 1990s spawned the emergence of smaller drug trafficking
organizations, primarily located in Colombian towns and intermediate
cities, prompting a resurgence in the use of drug carriers as a source of
transportation, said Mr. Bagley.

"These 'cartelitos' or boutique cartels lack the infrastructure and capital
to undertake large smuggling operations," said Mr. Bagley. "They must rely
on mules, often coercively or through the lure of rich rewards, to import
the goods."

Between 200 and 350 drug seizures from carriers were made last year at
Pearson International Airport, said Len Lanza, an RCMP operations sergeant.
Despite high-tech equipment, such as X-ray machines, the RCMP estimates
that they are catching only one per cent of actual carriers coming through
the airport.

Redistribution of RCMP finances is preventing officers from spending the
four or five days needed to sit with the carriers at local hospitals, where
they must wait for the drugs to be passed, said Mr. Lanza.

"There is a ton of drugs coming through the airport in people's guts," said
Mr. Lanza. "But it is not cost-effective for us to wait and collect the
evidence."

Last year in Miami, about 10 Canadian women were treated for drug
swallowing by doctors at Jackson Memorial Hospital, said Dr. Richard
Weisman, director of the Florida Poison Information Center at Jackson
Memorial Hospital. Many of them were not aware of the health risks.

A woman of average height and weight can ingest as many as 150 pellets,
each containing about 10 grams of cocaine, said Dr. Weisman. If just one of
these pellets bursts, there is a 90-per-cent chance of a lethal drug dose
being released into the body's system.

This was the case last Oct. 13, when a 20-year-old Toronto woman died while
in RCMP custody at Pearson International Airport. During her trip home from
Jamaica, the finger-tips of a latex glove she had swallowed leaked cocaine
into her stomach, said Duncan Smith, spokesman for Canada Customs at
Pearson.

"The risk is dependent on how the packaging is done," said Dr. Weisman.
"People use anything -- including balloons, latex and even glass
containers."

Many here say the greatest risk to mules is in the drug delivery itself.
There have been several cases in South Florida where a carrier, failing to
deliver all or part of the drugs, was killed by traffickers who will not
hesitate to slice open the victim's stomach to retrieve their products,
said Dr. Weisman.

"Carriers are expendable," said Mr. Bagley, who also advises the U.S. State
Department on drug trafficking.

"Compared to the cartels that could smuggle into a country as much as two
tonnes at a time, the cartelitos don't care if they lose a few mules, who
carry such small amounts."

Mr. Bagley has testified at four trials in the United States that drug
carriers are the victims in the trafficking hierarchy.

It is not only rich rewards that lead people like Ms. Hill to smuggle
drugs, but coercion and threats of violence against friends and family are
tactics traffickers use against carriers, said Mr. Bagley.

In 1996, a U.S. federal court in Miami recognized that a female Colombian
carrier was under duress when she attempted to smuggle about one kilogram
of cocaine into the United States.

"It starts in Colombia; possibly Peru -- the cartelitos fly or ship the
drugs to a Caribbean island, where subcontractors are hired to carry out
the trafficking to Canada and the United States," said Mr. Bagley. "There
are lots of people in the chain. The mule is at the bottom."

This may have been the case with Ms. Hill, whose relatives say she was
under duress this winter when she committed herself to smuggle cocaine into
Canada via Miami. When Ms. Hill did not return, her apartment was broken
into and Miami police suspected that her baby, Regine, was missing, said
Kim Minor, Ms. Hill's cousin.

"They said there was a ransom out on the baby, and wanted to know where she
was," said Ms. Minor. "I know Julie would not have done this if the child
had not been threatened."

Regine is now living with her grandmother in Port Colborne, Ont. At the
time of her arrest, Ms. Hill gave arresting officers the names and
descriptions of 'D' and the Montego Bay subcontractor, who supplied her the
drugs. At the time of Ms. Hill's plea bargain, both 'D' and the
subcontractor were thought to still be at large.

"These people use women who don't really think about what the outcome would
be," said Betty Upfold, Ms. Hill's mother.

"They never told her what it would be like if she got caught. Only the
positive things, the assurances of more money. What keeps going through my
mind is that if you don't think it will happen to you, it might."

Checked-by: (Joel W. Johnson)