U.S. OFFICIALS GRAB DRUG SHIPMENT AT B.C. BORDER

Truck's Load Includes Marijuana And 671,000 Tablets Of Ecstacy

VANCOUVER - U.S. officials are calling the Thursday seizure of 671,000
tablets of ecstasy at the Washington-British Columbia border part of
an increasing new smuggling problem.

"The ecstasy is significant," said Mike Milne, a spokesman for the
U.S. Customs and Border Protection. "The marijuana . . . we've just
kind of gotten used to that over the last few years.

"The new trend we're seeing up in western Washington coming down from
British Columbia is a rise in ecstasy over the last few years. It's
just grown in leaps and bounds," Milne said Friday.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers seized 210 kilograms of
the drug as well as 375 kilograms of marijuana as part of a routine
check Thursday night at Blaine, 40 kilometres southeast of Vancouver.

The drugs were found in 21 drums stashed among a total of 128 drums in
a truck with Canadian licence plates. The manifest recorded the cargo
as shredded scrap plastic.

The truck driver and passenger were briefly detained, but later
released. No charges were laid, Milne said.

Officers became suspicious after doing a gamma ray scan of the truck
and ordered it to a loading dock for a complete examination. During
that search, officers found the drugs.

"They were in bags inside the drums," Milne said. "Some of them were
hockey bags, some of them were not concealed at all."

Lynn Gardner, an official with U.S. Customs and Border Protection,
called the seizure "significant."

"Narcotics smuggling from British Columbia continues to be a major . .
. enforcement priority. Our continued vigilance has once again paid
off."

Milne said use of ecstasy in the state is a growing
problem.

"Certainly we're seeing more and more of it being smuggled in from
Western Canada. We're certainly on the lookout for it," he said.

Milne said U.S. officials are working with the RCMP to see if the
drugs are being manufactured in Canada or being trans-shipped through
Canada from other countries.

He referred questions about what is being done to combat that problem
in Canada to the RCMP.

The RCMP could not be reached for comment Friday afternoon.

The smuggling of drugs across the border south of Vancouver has not
been far from the news in the past year

In January, U.S. customs officers charged two 17-year-old Canadians
after they seized 5.3 kilograms of ecstasy concealed on them when they
tried to cross the border in a vehicle.

The two male youths face state charges in Whatcom County.

Officers arrested the pair after examining the vehicle and doing
personal searches.

And in a story that made news around the world, border officials found
a drug tunnel running under the border.

The last of three men charged with digging the first sophisticated
drug-smuggling tunnel under the U.S.-Canadian border pleaded guilty
two weeks ago.

Timothy Woo faces at least five years in prison and a maximum fine of
$2 million US when he is sentenced for conspiracy to smuggle
marijuana, as do Francis Devandra Raj and Jonathan Valenzuela, who
previously entered guilty pleas.

The Surrey men were arrested last July.

Authorities said they had just finished the 109-metre tunnel north of
Lynden, Wash., which ran from the living room of a home on the U.S.
side to a boarded-up Quonset hut on the Canadian side.