A NEW PIPELINE FOR COCAINE

LOS AMATES Starting as a small-time smuggler deep in the countryside, a
trucking company boss has become Central America's most-wanted drug
suspect, using platoons of pilots, fishermen and truck drivers to turn
Guatemala's sliver of Caribbean coast into a major pipeline for Colombian
cocaine.

U.S. and Guatemalan officials say Otto Herrera succeeded in building a
small but powerful smuggling gang because Guatemala's government did little
in recent years to stop the drug trade.

Now, facing increasing pressure from Washington, President Alfonso Portillo
is taking steps to crack down on drug smugglers. But even one of the
country's top drug investigators acknowledges more needs to be done.

"Guatemala was a paradise for them. There was total freedom, a green light
for narcos for three full years," said Jorge Paredes, national director of
anti-drug investigations. "The government of Guatemala lost its will to
attack the problem."

The problem got so bad after Portillo took office at the beginning of 2000
that President Bush dropped Guatemala in January from Washington's list of
allies in the counter-narcotics effort, citing corruption that reached to
the highest level of government.

Guatemala has long been a transit point for shipping narcotics to Mexico
and the United States. But with Mexican President Vicente Fox increasing
efforts to cripple his country's narcotics trade, Colombian smugglers began
working more closely with Guatemalan gangs that collect, store and prepare
drugs, a U.S. State Department official said.

"They were making drug flights in broad daylight and in fairly developed
areas," the official said.

Successful drug raids in other parts of Central America, including El
Salvador, Honduras, Costa Rica and Nicaragua, made Guatemala an even more
popular route for narcotics flowing from South America's jungles to U.S.
streets. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration says half of the 400 tons
of cocaine smuggled through Central America each year passes through Guatemala.

Herrera has disappeared since the crackdown began. In April, authorities
stormed a house they said was owned by one of his associates in an upscale
Guatemala City neighborhood and discovered $14.4 million in cash.

Los Amates, a sun-scorched town of 70,000 people, is home to Herrera's
trucking company and is the center of his alleged drug operation.

In the heart of banana-growing country, the town's muddy streets are
clogged with new sports cars. Its ultramodern banks seem more suited for a
first-world financial district than a town with two restaurants.

Authorities say the gang's leaders have moved elsewhere, but dozens of
farmers-turned-smugglers live in heavily guarded ranches near the town.

Mayor Julio Humberto Alvarez said he often straps three pistols to his
waist and travels with a pack of neighbors for protection. He agreed to
speak about drug trafficking in Los Amates but only in an interview at a
highway restaurant two hours away.

He said drug-related violence often kills up to 25 people a month in Los
Amates, although federal officials couldn't confirm the town's murder rate.

"Many of our people are hardworking farmers, but too many others are
trafficking for Herrera," Alvarez said.

Much of the cocaine arriving in Guatemala comes aboard ships that steam
into Puerto Barrios, the country's only major Caribbean port, 55 miles
north of Los Amates.

Small planes also fly in from South America, landing at heavily guarded
clandestine airstrips in the mountains outside town or dropping drug
packages to fishing boats in the shallow coastal waters. Speedboats capable
of carrying up to a ton of cocaine rendezvous with fishermen.

Guatemala is stepping up efforts against drug smugglers. The three tons of
cocaine seized in the first five months of this year was almost double the
amount for all of 2002.

The government also replaced the agents on its anti-narcotics force and
signed an agreement giving the U.S. Coast Guard greater freedom to enter
Guatemalan waters in search of drug vessels.

But resources remain scarce. Luis Mauricio Palacios, head of the anti- drug
office in Puerto Barrios, said his agents don't even have boats to search
for skiffs making drug runs.

"If we get good intelligence that drugs are on the way, we have places we
can rent boats for a night or two," he said.