NEW POLICE UNIT SEEKS DRUGS, CASH HIDDEN IN CARS

Investigators have known for years how gangs move drugs, guns and
money around Chicago.

Any car -- soccer-mom Volvos, serviceable Honda Civics, custom-made
vans with plush carpeting and run-down 1992 Fords -- can be equipped
with secret compartments that hide the spoils of gang life.

Since December, a seven-person team of Chicago Police Department
officers has been assigned to a new unit that follows the trail of
these cars and what's inside them -- maybe $295,000 in a trunk or
1,800 pounds of pot behind a back seat.

The unit develops its own informants to find these cars, is specially
trained to locate and open the compartments, and also helps other cops
in their investigations.

The compartments are just about anywhere a drug dealer can find space
to hide something. They are opened, typically, after a series of
buttons on a dashboard are pushed in the right sequence. Some liken it
to safecracking or a game of hide-and-seek.

So far, the team has confiscated $8.1 million in cash, $62 million in
cocaine, $34 million worth of marijuana, 23 handguns and three assault
weapons. They've also seized more than 100 vehicles.

And the team -- a diverse group working undercover to find out when
shipments are moving -- is just skimming the surface.

"There's no coca fields in Chicago. There's no gun factories in
Chicago," said Sgt. John Hamilton, who heads up the team. "Everything
is being brought in here. . . . The bottom line is motor vehicles are
the conveyance. No matter how many millions of dollars they have and
how creative they want to be, they're still limited to a motor
vehicle. There's no teleportation device. You can't e-mail kilos."

Chicago detectives started noticing hidden compartments more than 20
years ago, said Detective Walter Smith, who lobbied for legislation
passed in 1999 that made the devices, or "traps," illegal if used for
criminal activity.

Smith, of Chicago's Belmont Area police headquarters, started teaching
the department about the traps in 1997.

"Since we started the training, the asset forfeiture people have told
me they have had countless amounts of cars with compartments,'' he
said. "The pound is just full of them."

The team also works informants to find out when drugs are coming into
Chicago from out of state or from Mexico.

In addition to their own cases, the team is often called to help other
Chicago units find compartments.

Federal agencies, including the Drug Enforcement Administration and
the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, also call Hamilton, he
said.

Because of the undercover work, the department doesn't want to name
other team members. The members range in experience from four years on
the job to 17. They're mostly young, and they represent just about
every part of society -- white, African American and Hispanic. They
include a young jock, a quiet unassuming guy, a woman.

Hamilton and Smith both have a background or interest in engineering,
something they say is very helpful when trying to figure out how to
trigger a trap.

The more experienced members of the team say they've been shocked by
the lengths drug dealers will go to hide their stuff.

"Less experienced members reel at the quantity of drugs moving around
the city every day," one team member said. "I was on patrol and dealt
with street corner stuff. Now I'm seeing the very top level. It amazes
me. You cannot believe when you're on patrol this stuff is actually
out there."