U.S. AGENTS DRILL INTO ASPHALT FROM COLOMBIA, FIND DRUGS

On a hunch,federal agents in Charleston, S.C. drilled into a shipment of
hardened asphalt from Colombia and found a buried treasure 863 pounds of
cocaine with a street value of $20 million.

The drugs found last month were crammed inside plastic pipes surrounded by
hardened asphalt inside metal drums.

"The conceal method was brilliant," Frank Algozzini, resident agent in
charge of U.S. Customs Service investigations, said Friday.

The drugs could not be detected by Xrays or drugsniffing dogs. But agents
were suspicious that a lowvalue commodity such as asphalt was being
transported by ship from Colombia through Charleston and on to Europe.

Agents used industrial drills to bore through 1,291 drums of the asphalt.
On Oct. 9, they found drugs in 62 of them, each containing 13 to 18 pounds
of cocaine.