DEPUTIES PATROL I-95 LOOKING FOR ILLEGAL DRUGS

They hide the drugs in tires, in air-bag compartments and under the hood.
They mask the odor with baby powder, mustard, axle grease and fabric softener.

The drugs and the people who ferry them vary. Cocaine, marijuana, Ecstasy,
heroin, opium. Young women, old men, white, black, Latino.

But the drug couriers whom deputies stop on Interstate 95 sometimes fail to
conceal their anxiety, and the ICE team notices, says Sheriff's Capt. LaRue
Windham.

The Interstate Criminal Enforcement team patrols the stretch of I-95 that
runs through Cumberland County. Windham supervises the two-deputy team,
which stops vehicles that speed or violate other traffic laws.

As deputies talk to drivers, they look for what Windham calls "an abundance
of indicators" - nervousness, a lack of eye contact, other behaviors beyond
what most drivers show when stopped. Deputies patrol the southbound and
northbound lanes. They ask people routine questions, including travel
origins and destinations, he said.

"When they repeat questions back to you or start looking around at
billboards for answers ... that throws off a red flag," he said.

If a deputy determines that a driver may be hauling drugs, he asks to
search the vehicle.

Windham said couriers go to sophisticated lengths to avoid detection -
false floor compartments that are opened using hydraulic systems, double
radiators, dummy gas tanks or false manifolds.

Drivers hit a sequence of buttons or switches to open the more complicated
hydraulic compartments. The deputies Wednesday demonstrated such a system
in a confiscated Mercury Mountaineer. It took them several minutes to
remember the sequence, but when opened, the panel behind the rear seat
inched backward to reveal a hole that had been cut in the chassis.

"You hear that hydraulic humming noise; it's a sweet sound," the sergeant said.

Deputies use high-tech gadgets to search for contraband.

A device they call a "contraband buster" scans inside the tires and
compartment walls. A fiber-optic scope with an 8 mm lens allows lawmen to
look into gas tanks and other tight spaces.

Cocaine, marijuana

Cocaine and marijuana constitute the bulk of the seizures, Windham said.

About 10 percent of the searches yield drugs, the deputies said. The lawmen
consider at least a kilo of cocaine or 10 pounds of marijuana to be a
substantial drug bust.

Several years ago, the team stopped a courier who was carrying 80,000 doses
of Ecstasy. At the time, Windham said, it was the largest seizure of
Ecstasy in the country.

On Feb. 24, the team arrested Edilberto Ayestas of Houston. Ayestas had 155
pounds of marijuana in at least 15 garbage bags in his Chevrolet truck.
Ayestas was charged with two felony counts of trafficking in marijuana.

Despite such successes, Windham said, most of the people carrying drugs
through the county on I-95 are not stopped.

According to an FBI study in the mid-1990s, Windham said, one in seven
vehicles on I-95 is carrying contraband, and one in 50 is carrying large
quantities.

Couriers often travel in numbers, up to six cars at a time, Windham said.
People transporting drugs are driving through Cumberland County 24 hours a
day, seven days a week.

Stopping cars on I-95 is dangerous, Windham said. The deputies say up to a
third of the couriers, whom they call mules, carry guns, Windham said.

Sheriff's Cpl. David Walter Hathcock and Trooper Lloyd Lowry were shot and
killed Sept. 23, 1997, during a traffic stop on I-95 outside Fayetteville.

Lowry initiated the stop and called for backup after learning the car was
stolen. The assailants shot the lawmen with an AK-47 assault rifle. Lowry
had been a lawmen for 18 years. He was 57.

Brothers Tilmon and Kevin Golphin were convicted of the murders and
sentenced to death in 1998. They had been wanted for armed robbery when
they were stopped.

Tilmon Golphin opened fire with the semiautomatic rifle, and Kevin Golphin
shot both officers with Lowry's pistol.

A year later, Robeson County Deputy James Hunt was shot twice in the chest,
and a training officer, Lt. Robbie Bishop of the Villa Rica Police
Department in Georgia, was shot once in the leg after a chase on I-95.

Alfred Odum of Fayetteville was charged with shooting them, but trials on
the charges in October 2001 and August 2002 ended in mistrials because
jurors failed to agree on a verdict.

Hunt recovered. Bishop was killed in January 1999 during a traffic stop in
Georgia.

The ICE deputies say most of the people they have arrested with large drug
shipments weren't armed, maybe because of tough federal laws that mandate
long sentences for violating gun laws, the deputies said.

Seizure money

The Sheriff's Office gets 80 percent of the money it seizes in drug busts,
Sheriff Moose Butler said.

Sheriff's Budget Manager Howard M. Lloyd Jr. estimated that ICE team
seizures account for at least two-thirds of the proposed $2.8 million
budget for a new sheriff's training center.

The center will be built on property donated by the Cumberland County Board
of Commissioners, and tax money will not be used, Lloyd said.

Construction is scheduled to begin in the fall and be completed in spring
2005. Tentative plans for the center include an indoor firing range,
classrooms and a large outdoor asphalt pad for driving instruction. The
animal shelter will also move to the facility.

Lloyd said replacing the current training center, which he called "a couple
of decrepit trailers" behind Crown Expo Center, at one time seemed unrealistic.

Money coming into the sheriff's portion of the Federal Forfeiture Fund 10
years ago was relatively small, Lloyd said. The fund is administered by the
Drug Enforcement Administration and includes money from drug seizures and
property sold from other crimes, he said.

In the past five years, the Sheriff's Office has been "quite lucky as far
as our seizures," Lloyd said.

Windham said ICE team money goes to the sheriff's bomb squad, special
response team and other programs.

About 90 percent of the specialized equipment used by the team is from
seized assets or forfeiture money. He said the I-95 drug busts make a
small, but important dent in local drug trafficking.

"Any time you can get in the dope dealer's pocket, you hurt him a little
bit. The ICE team is worth its weight in gold."

Some civil libertarians disagree with the tactics used by the ICE team.

The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prohibits unlawful or
arbitrary searches.

There are exceptions to the amendment, such as when illegal items are in
plain view of police officers.

Officers don't usually need a search warrant if they determine there is
probable cause to believe that a crime has been committed.

But if lawmen ask for consent or permission to search, it "probably means
they do not have a legal reason to search," says Steven Silverman.

Silverman is the executive director of Flex Your Rights, a Washington,
D.C.-based nonprofit civil liberties education organization.

"People need to know they have every right to just say no" to consent
searches, Silverman said. "In a free society, police shouldn't be going
around on these fishing expeditions."

Lawmen "often trick or intimidate citizens into consenting to searches,"
Silverman said.

Only 10 percent of vehicle stops yield drugs or contraband, Silverman said.
If stopped, drivers should be polite to lawmen, but respectfully decline to
consent to a search, he said.

"I think the greatest threat to the community is law enforcement not
respecting the Constitution."

Flex Your Rights and the American Civil Liberties Union have produced an
instructional video titled "Busted: The Citizens' Guide to Surviving Police
Encounters."

Windham said ICE deputies receive extensive training on constitutional
issues, including vehicle stops, consent searches and contraband seizures.

"We have to abide by the Constitution," he said. "Interdiction ... is just
another tool law enforcement utilizes to keep our community safe."

Windham said ICE deputies strictly follow the law.

"You don't want to have to give back drug money," he said. "You want to
make sure they go to prison."