Source: Houston Chronicle, page 1
http://www.chron.com/cgibin/auth/story/content/chronicle/page1/97/08/13/drugs.html
Contact: viewpoints@chron.com

Drug traffic surge seen in S. Texas

Area eclipsing El Paso as a funnel for narcotics

By THADDEUS HERRICK
Copyright 1997 Houston Chronicle

A senior drugenforcement official on Tuesday predicted a major
shift in Texas trafficking patterns, with Laredo and the Rio
Grande Valley eclipsing El Paso as the top spots to smuggle
narcotics into the state.

Ernest Howard, special agent in charge of the Houston office of
the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, said authorities are
already seeing a surge in smuggling through ports of entry in
South Texas in addition to increased warehousing in neighboring
Mexican cities.

Howard attributed the shift to a boom in NAFTArelated traffic in
Laredo and the recent death of Amado Carrillo Fuentes, a Mexican
drug lord who resided in Juarez and favored El Paso, across the
Rio Grande, as a shipping point.

"I think you're going to see more contraband coming into the
Lower Valley than you did before," Howard said. "That's the
future."

Howard's comments came a day after authorities announced the
breakup of three drug cells allegedly run by Carrillo Fuentes'
Mexican cartel. The organization shipped huge amounts of cocaine
to New York City, much of it through Texas.

The state, with its 890 miles of Mexican border, is widely seen
as critical to Mexican traffickers, who authorities say are
taking business from the Colombian cartels in smuggling cocaine
into the United States. The Mexican federation also has its hand
in the heroin and marijuana trade, officials say.

"Texas will still play a prominent role," said Phil Jordan,
former head of the El Paso Intelligence Center, a worldwide drug
monitoring post. "Whether we see a shift (to South Texas) or
not."

U.S. agents arrested about 90 people overall in the latest bust
and seized 11.8 tons of cocaine, more than 6 tons of marijuana
and $18.4 million in U.S. currency. Officials learned during the
investigation that drugs were being stored in an El Paso
warehouse and distributed by employees of Carrillo Fuentes.

The case was triggered, in part, by a pair of Interstate 30
seizures near Tyler, east of Dallas.

In October, a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper stopped a
van headed for El Paso for a traffic violation and discovered $2
million hidden in a false panel of the van. In December, the same
trooper pulled over an 18wheeler headed to New York and found
1,800 pounds of marijuana. The men in both vehicles had driver's
licenses listing addresses in New Rochelle, a New York City
suburb.

That led to a DPS stakeout two days later at the El Paso
warehouse and the seizure of 2,500 pounds of cocaine from a large
tractortrailer bound for New York. DPS information was
instrumental in the subsequent arrest of 15 members of Carrillo
Fuentes' distribution ring in New York, said FBI Special Agent
Jim Margolin in New York.

Howard, whose Houston office is responsible for the interdiction
of narcotics from Louisiana to New Mexico, said the El Paso bust
was encouraging but that it meant little in the overall war on
drugs. He likened it to one play in an entire football game.

"If you stop one play in a football game, do you win the game?"
Howard said. "No. Not if they score on every other play."

Howard said almost twothirds of all the cocaine entering the
United States comes through the nation's southern border, the
majority of it in Texas. He did not have a figure for heroin, but
he said threefourths of the marijuana shipped into the United
States enters through Texas.

"It's still coming across in vast quantities," he said.

The smuggling shift to South Texas began even before Carrillo
Fuentes' death, Howard said. Authorities say they took particular
notice last winter when Mexican officials seized 15 tons of
cocaine a mere 75 miles south of the Rio Grande Valley, where it
was headed.

Howard said the increased tractortrailer traffic brought about
by the North American Free Trade Agreement of several years ago
has helped smugglers, especially in Laredo, which funnels 60
percent of the U.S. trade with Mexico.

The agricultural industry of the Rio Grande Valley also makes it
appealing to drug traffickers since trucks are almost always
hauling produce north from Mexico and South Texas.

"There's so much legitimate traffic," said Howard. "For drug
traffickers, it only makes sense to mix in illegitimate traffic.
Their chances of getting caught become smaller."

Officials say the Mexican border became the preferred place for
smuggling drugs into the United States several years ago when
authorities successfully blocked the Caribbean routes used by the
Colombian cartels.

Jordan said NAFTA then eased drug trafficking by reinforcing
wellestablished routes between Mexico and Texas. He said
Carrillo Fuentes, a "master of the narcotics universe," took
advantage of El Paso and its access to Interstates 10 and 25.

But Howard said the bulk of the NAFTA traffic goes north from
Laredo on I35, which he fears could become a main drug corridor.

Experts who study the drug trade's impact on the border say the
move by Mexican drug lords into the cocaine distribution network,
a departure from their traditional role as transporters, signals
their continued strength.

"The federation of drug organizations in Mexico has been getting
stronger, more sophisticated since they started," said Gabriela
Lemus, a border scholar at San Diego State University. "They are
businessmen, and it's more profitable if they handle (the
distribution) themselves.

"This is about control, and not just about money," he said. "It's
about controlling information, about keeping it in the family and
keeping their activities quiet."

Chronicle reporter James Pinkerton contributed to this story.