TRACKING NUKE WEAPONS

PHOENIX -- For three decades, the Shadow Wolves have helped stem the flow
of illegal drugs across the desert linking Mexico and the Tohono O'odham
Nation's sprawling reservation in southern Arizona.

Now the U.S. Customs Service's only American Indian tracking unit is taking
its skills to Europe in an attempt to curb the smuggling of nuclear,
chemical and biological weapons.

Three of the 21-member group are spending most of this month in Latvia,
Lithuania and Estonia. Others have already traveled to Kazakstan and
Uzbekistan to train customs officials, border guards and national police to
detect and follow the ground tracks of anyone suspected of carrying
components of mass-destruction weapons.

The goal is to improve those countries' tracking techniques so they can
better train their own people.

"Our environment is getting more and more dangerous every day. A lot of law
enforcement agencies are looking to beef up at their borders and the Shadow
Wolves can provide some of that training," said Kyle Barnett, associate
special agent in charge for Customs' Arizona district.

The overseas trips are being conducted under the auspices of the Export
Control and Border Security program, a joint effort of the State
Department, Customs Service and other agencies to assist more than two
dozen nations, most of them in the former Soviet bloc.

Customs officials said the one-week training sessions consist of classroom
lectures on tracking techniques and outdoor simulations.

"They basically teach them how to pick up foot signs," Barnett said. "The
terrain in the Baltics is very similar to the Arizona desert. There's a lot
of rocky terrain, so our trackers adapt well."

Only a few members of the Shadow Wolves make the overseas trip at one time
so it does not interfere with their Arizona jobs.

It was only after a few original members retired in recent years that the
Shadow Wolves' membership was opened up to other tribes and women.

"We're in the process now of asking (the federal government) to increase
the group's number by an additional 10 trackers plus one supervisor,"
Barnett said. "There's enough work out there where we could quadruple their
size and still keep them all busy."

The group comprises 19 men and two women, all Indians from nearly a dozen
different tribes around the country.

It began in 1972 with around 12 men from the Tohono O'odham Nation under a
program created by Congress to foster better relations with the tribe and
help it patrol its reservation, which shares 76 miles of border with Mexico.

"They have been a great asset," said Joseph Delgado, assistant tribal
police chief. "They've helped us numerous times in everything from tracking
down suspects in stolen vehicles to finding missing children. They assist
us a lot."

Headquartered in Sells, Ariz., the Shadow Wolves' size has steadily
increased over the years. But its main mission has remained constant: to
track down and stop smugglers hauling marijuana, cocaine or heroin on foot
or horseback across the Mexican border.

Customs officials say the armed Indian trackers seize more than 70 percent
of the drugs the agency finds on the 3 million-acre Tohono O'odham
reservation west of Tucson.

Instead of relying on new high-tech equipment, the Shadow Wolves track the
old-fashioned way -- by looking for footprints, broken branches, disturbed
rocks or fibers left behind by a burlap bag. And they do it at all hours of
the day or night.

"It's their heritage. Those tracking skills have been passed on from
generation to generation," Barnett said. "They're a tremendous group of
folks and they work harder than anyone I know. They have success, and
success breeds success."

So far in the fiscal year that began last Oct. 1, the Shadow Wolves have
arrested 400 smugglers and seized 96,000 pounds of marijuana, said John
Martelli, one of the group's supervisors.

"Marijuana is the drug of choice coming out of the Sells area," Barnett
said. "But these people are successful at whatever they trail. They're the
best I've ever seen."

On the Net:

Customs Service: http://www.customs.ustreas.gov/

Tohono O'odham information: http://www.itcaonline.com/Tribes%5Ctohono.htm