NUMBER OF HISPANIC DRUG TRAFFICKERS IS UP

Hundreds of immigrant drug traffickers have flooded North Carolina in the
past seven years, an increase linked to the growth of Hispanic immigrants
in the state, authorities say.

At the end of 1995, just 10 Hispanics were in state prisons for
drug-trafficking convictions. As of October, that number had risen to 400,
according to the N.C. Department of Correction.

In Wake County, where Hispanics make up 5.4 percent of the total
population, they accounted for 46 percent of drug trafficking arrests in
2002, the Wake County Sheriff's Office reported.

"Mexican drug trade organizations (in North Carolina) have essentially
taken over the drugtrafficking business from other groups," said Kerri
Pepoy, an intelligence analyst for the National Drug Intelligence Center.
Nationally, nearly half of all people charged with federal drug offenses
between 1984 and 1999 were Hispanic, according to a 1999 U.S. Department of
Justice report.

Federal drug-enforcement officials say that about 65 percent of all the
cocaine that enters this country and the bulk of marijuana are brought in
from Mexico.

Hispanic leaders say that drug dealers lure poor immigrants into their
service with money and worry that the increase in drug arrests could paint
an unfair picture of the growing immigrant community.

North Carolina's Hispanic population has increased 394 percent since 1990,
with about 65 percent arriving from Mexico, according to Census reports.

"To my knowledge, the majority of people coming here are just hard-working
individuals trying to support their families," said Andrea Bazan-Manson,
the executive director of El Pueblo Inc., a Hispanic advocacy group in
Raleigh. "Drug trafficking is not a part of that equation. Any community
has a criminal element, and I think it's important to separate the
immigrants that are here working from that element."

An immigrant can make $2,000 to $3,000 by carrying drugs from North
Carolina to Texas, Pepoy said.

"They aren't going to make that kind of money picking apples or plucking
chickens," he said.

Mexican traffickers have gained control of the state's cocaine and
marijuana distribution by increasing their volume while undercutting
competing groups' prices, said the National Drug Intelligence Center.

The North American Free Trade Agreement, which led to the loss of thousands
of textile jobs in North Carolina, has also played a role in the drug
trade, said David Gaddis, an assistant special agent in charge of the U.S.
Drug Enforcement Agency's operations in North Carolina.

"The free trade agreement made it possible for the movement of thousands of
containers across the U.S.-Mexican border," Gaddis said. "It's common for
drugs to be woven into those legitimate cargoes."

Mexican drug lords work with Colombian cocaine suppliers to transport the
drug into the country as powder, Pepoy said. Once the powder cocaine
reaches the retailers, it's cooked and sold on the streets as crack.