SPOTLIGHT
Copyright (c) 1997, Sentinel Communications Co.

More federal agents, patrol boats and aircraft are on
their way to Puerto Rico in an attempt to plug the pipeline
funneling South American drugs to Florida and the rest of
the U.S. mainland. FBI Director Louis Freeh and other
federal officials pledged millions of dollars' worth of
help Thursday at a congressional hearing aboard the U.S.
Coast Guard cutter Gallatin in San Juan Harbor.

The promise comes five years into a wave of
unprecedented violence that island officials blame on
warring drug gangs.

"Puerto Rico has had the misfortune to become a
springboard and a staging area for the deadly drug
cartels," island Attorney General Jose Fuentes Agostini
testified. "Let this devastation advance no further. Help
us end the agony here, on America's Caribbean frontier."

The federal officials warned it might take five years,
however, to significantly reduce the amount of drugs
reaching Puerto Rico and the rest of the United States.

U.S. Rep. Bill McCollum, who chaired the hearing of the
House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, applauded the
renewed focus on stopping drugs before they reach U.S.
waters.

"Successful interdiction means fewer kids in San Juan,
Orlando and Chicago using drugs," said McCollum,
RLongwood. Colombian heroin is blamed for 123 deaths in
Florida last year. With 33 in Seminole, Orange and Osceola
counties, the Orlando area had the highest rate of heroin
fatalities in the state.

Drug smugglers have moved increasingly to Puerto Rico in
recent years to evade law enforcement pressures in South
Florida, the Bahamas and along the Mexican border,
authorities said.

Up to 12 1/2 metric tons of cocaine are shipped through
the Caribbean monthly and 20 percent of that is used by
Colombian cartels to pay traffickers who work for them in
Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.

Drug seizures that would be staggering anywhere else in
the United States are common in Puerto Rico. Since October,
Coast Guard vessels have seized 11 tons of cocaine in local
waters. U.S. Customs Service officials have seized another
16 1/2 tons of cocaine and 151 pounds of heroin in the past
year.

Fuentes told the subcommittee that drugs have given
Puerto Rico the highest murder rate in the nation. Of the
868 people killed on the island last year, 80 percent were
drugrelated, he said. The attorney general read a
statement from Puerto Rican Gov. Pedro Rossello, who has
been hospitalized and could not attend the hearing. To
counter the drug problem and violence, island authorities
are beefing up police and prison programs, in addition to
setting up drug courts and joining federal task forces.
Violent crimes such as robbery and rape have dropped as a
result, Fuentes said.

U.S. Drug Enforcement Administrator Thomas Constantine,
U.S. Customs Service Commissioner George Weise and Adm.
Robert Kramek, commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, joined
Freeh in testifying about federal plans for the Caribbean
drug war.

The FBI chief said 103 FBI personnel, including more
than 60 agents, and $13 million in funding will be sent to
the island. The agency also will set up two more antidrug
squads and join other federal and local police agencies in
forming four regional teams to better attack drug smugglers
and gangs on the island's coasts.

Constantine announced he was increasing the number of
DEA agents on the island from 28 to 53 to help combat
Colombian drug syndicates and the Puerto Rican and
Dominican Republic gangs they employ. He called the
Colombian cartels "the most powerful organized crime
syndicate the world has ever seen." Weise said 92 new
customs officers, inspectors and pilots will be added in
Puerto Rico. Seven new patrol boats, two helicopters and
more radar and cargo Xray equipment is on the way, he
said.

Kramek and his staff asked for more patrol boats,
aircraft, manpower and aerial infrared tracking equipment
to better patrol the 311mile island coastline. But a
reduction in the size of the U.S. Navy and a cut of 4,000
Coast Guard personnel forced a reduction in Caribbean
patrols that opened the door to drug smugglers, he said.

Kramek, who estimates the cartels make at least 760
metric tons of cocaine annually, said 58 percent enters the
United States through Mexico and about 25 percent through
Puerto Rico and the eastern Caribbean.

Estimates on the percentage of drugs flowing through the
Caribbean vary widely, however. McCollum set the amount at
40 percent last year.

Kramek also said he thinks federal, state and local
agencies are seizing onethird of the drugs being produced
three times the estimate of many authorities. But half of
the drug output would need to be intercepted to force drug
prices up, he said. Cocaine prices nationwide dropped from
$110 a gram in 1993 to $94 last year, McCollum noted.

Drug fighters would like an overthehorizon radar
planned for Puerto Rico that would spot drug planes leaving
Colombia and Peru. That project has been stalled for two
years, however, because of health concerns about radar
raised by island residents.

Freeh asked the panel to expand the federal wiretap law
to allow tracking of drug dealers who use cellular phones,
phone cards, cloned phones or multiple pay phones. He also
urged the Puerto Rico government to lift the prohibition on
local police conducting wiretaps, which is part of the
island's constitution.

Constantine remarked that islanders are paying a high
price in the drug war living in fear of crime.