TASK FORCE PATROLS DRUG CORRIDOR

With the U.S.-Mexico border the starting point and the Valley the end
zone, there is a strategic game played every night between police and
smugglers for control of the 50-yard line, a rugged stretch of desert
that straddles Interstate 8 between Gila Bend and Casa Grande.

The area has become the focal point for the state's war on drug
trafficking.

A group of specially trained deputies and police officers confront
smugglers nightly in the same cat-and-mouse game the two sides have
played for decades, officials say. But as traffickers have become more
sophisticated, police have been forced to expend more resources and
create new partnerships in an attempt to keep up.

"Do we think down here that we're going to dismantle a cartel and some
of their cells? No," said Maricopa County sheriff's Lt. Steve Bailey.
"But we have to do something."

What needs to be done is debatable. Consider:

. The National Day Laborer Organizing Network released a statement
last week calling for federal intervention into Sheriff Joe Arpaio's
plan to use aircraft to patrol the corridor as part of a monthlong
operation targeting drug smugglers.

. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano cited decreasing
violent-crime statistics last month in El Paso and said border
security is better than ever. She was accused in conservative circles
of understating the problem or willfully ignoring it.

. Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu predicted in early February that a
deputy working in the area would get in a shootout with smugglers in
the next two months.

. Gov. Jan Brewer famously claimed last summer that headless bodies
were appearing in the Sonoran Desert, courtesy of smuggling crews.

On Friday, Arpaio pointed to drug seizures as a sign that the border
is not secure.

"I know there are a lot of violent crimes occurring . . . Watch TV
every night. What's that mean? We still have violent crime," Arpaio
said. "As far as the drug traffic still coming in, that's serious. If
we secured the border that much, why are we, with just 10 guys, making
all these seizures if the border is secure.?"

Strip away the political rhetoric about living and dying along the
U.S.-Mexico border and you have a dozen deputies and officers waiting
for the sun to go down so they can outfit themselves with
military-grade equipment and go off into the desert in search of
traffickers.

The 10-agency task force consists of officers from the Tempe, Mesa and
Phoenix police departments, along with the state Department of Public
Safety and Pinal and Maricopa County sheriff's offices.

When asked about their safety, officers who work the corridor point to
signs in the area that caution travelers about smuggling activity.

Officers on the task force believe the danger of a shootout persists
as long as they keep confronting smugglers and taking more and more of
their cash crop.

"Certainly, that's what we train for," Bailey said. But he added that
he believes the smugglers carry guns as protection from other bandit
crews.

To federal officials, the task force that brings together local, state
and federal resources to target smuggling activity is proof that the
government's border-security plan is working. An increase in
border-patrol agents has freed up agents to participate in the task
forces and work with local law enforcement to disrupt smuggling.

It's taken months of trial and error for the officers to find the
right equipment and they have had training from experts in tracking,
navigation and desert warfare to perfect their techniques.

The smugglers, who have worked in the area for years, can have the
upper hand when it comes to manpower and resources.

Traffickers have installed their own radio transponders in southern
Arizona mountains and use solar-powered radios to stay connected in
the desert. They also have well-trained teams of backpackers who haul
drugs through the desert, scouts positioned throughout the area to
look for law enforcement, and coordinated delivery of vehicles that
provide food, fuel and water to scouts and backpackers for their stays
in the desert.

"These guys know this area better than we do," Bailey said. "They turn
their (vehicle) lights off and just fly through there."

That's the situation that unfolded near Interstate 8 shortly after
9:30 Thursday night, when a sheriff's deputy pulled behind a truck and
watched as the truck made a hard right turn onto a poorly marked
desert road. As soon as the truck's driver saw the squad car, he
turned off the truck's lights and launched blind into the desert. By
the time sheriff's deputies and border-patrol agents tracked down the
truck 30 minutes later, the men inside had fled into the desert and
the supplies - water, potatoes, canned goods, gas and kerosene - were
left behind.

A similar chase last month led task-force members to more than 1,700
pounds of pot stashed in a Dodge truck stolen from a 43-year-old
Surprise man.

The task force's objective is not to target human smugglers but to
intercept drug loads before they get to a stash house in the Valley
where robberies and shootouts occur. In 2009, the group seized more
than 4,800 pounds of pot in the area, worth nearly $5 million; last
year, the task force confiscated nearly 20,000 pounds of pot worth
almost $20 million.

Those numbers have recently turned the Vekol Valley into a tense
battlefield in the decades-long drug war, but the area, with its array
of washes and unmarked desert roads, was attractive to smugglers 25
years ago, said Department of Public Safety Maj. David Denlinger, who
worked in the area and now coordinates DPS' border-enforcement efforts.

"Different corridors shift over the years based on enforcement
activity south of the border and north of the border," Denlinger said.
"There are constant adjustments made on both sides. With everything we
do, they try to develop a counter to that."