ICE BRIDGE ACROSS RIVER ATTRACTS INTERNATIONAL SMUGGLERS

HOGANSBURG -- When the St. Lawrence River freezes each winter,
international shipping freezes as well. But with the formation of an
"ice bridge" between Canada and American Indian country, legal and
illegal international commerce continues to thrive.

Roughly 10 miles of seaway divides most of the Akwesasne Reservation
between the United States and Canada. Throughout most of the year,
border agents in boats, equipped with bulletproof vests and night
vision goggles, patrol these waters. That becomes more difficult to do
when the river becomes incased in ice thick enough to support trucks,
cars and snowmobiles. Snowmobiles can't cover the same terrain as
quickly as speed boats, and smugglers can find new paths on the ice
bridge to avoid capture.

"Many people use the ice bridges and most of them are law-abiding,"
said Canadian Akwesasne Mohawk Police Chief Lewis A. Mitchell.
"However, smuggler do know about it and use it."

One such case arrived in Massena Town Court.

Two Montreal residents were charged Jan. 21 by village police with
bringing 26 pounds of marijuana from Canada into the United States.

Both will held at St. Lawrence County jail, Canton, for 60 days, fined
$1,000, and forfeit their vehicle to the state.

While the two drug smugglers were arrested in the village of Massena,
police were observing them in Canada, a drug investigator said.

Quebec Provincial Police first spotted their vehicle on Cornwall
Island, Ontario, parked at the edge of the frozen St. Lawrence River.
The officers alerted American border patrol agents to the car, and the
vehicle was watched as it crossed the Cornwall International Bridge.
The Vehicle passed through inspections without any sign of contraband
and proceeded to a house on the reservation.

When it left the reservation and entered the village of Massena,
police moved in and apprehended the two traffickers. They found a
hockey bag filled with marijuana that both Customs and village
investigators believe was carried over the river on a snowmobile and
eventually into Hogansburg.

" If they would have seen the bag at the port they would have stopped
them," Massena Village Investigator Joseph W. Brown said.

Despite smugglers' use of the river ice, a steady flow of traffic
between the two countries should not be considered illegal, Chief
Mitchell said.