BORDER AGENTS ON LOOKOUT FOR TERRORISTS ARE FINDING DRUGS

NOGALES, Ariz., March 4 -- This was not Cuauchtemoc Garcia's luckiest
day.

As he drove his white Honda Civic into the United States border
checkpoint here from Mexico, his engine overheated, sending up plumes
of steam and catching the attention of customs agents who, to this
point, had not suspected that he was much more than a man who did not
take very good care of his car.

But as they talked to him and began asking questions, they decided, as
they do in these post-Sept. 11 days, to run his name through a
databank. That was where the bad luck came in. Mr. Garcia, 20, who
lives here, was wanted in neighboring Pima County for failing to
appear in court on a traffic violation, a misdemeanor. As he was
escorted into a holding cell and placed in handcuffs, his car was the
least of his worries.

Mr. Garcia was hardly the most dangerous fugitive to pass through
Nogales, one of the busiest checkpoints along the Mexican border, with
more than 20,000 people a day traveling north by foot, car and truck.
But he exemplified life at border checkpoints now that the United
States is on a heightened security alert for terrorists and weapons,
and checkpoints have more personnel and equipment than ever, with more
help on the way from 1,600 National Guard troops.

Kevin Bell, a spokesman for the Customs Service, said the efforts had
stopped "a number of people linked to terrorism" whom the F.B.I. and
other federal agencies have interest in. But more often, he said, the
added resources are helping catch other quarry, including fugitives
like Mr. Garcia, illegal border crossers and, most of all, people
transporting illegal drugs.

Here and elsewhere along a border of more than 1,900 miles from
Brownsville, Tex., to San Ysidro, Calif., drug seizures have been
soaring. Mr. Bell said the flow of heroin, cocaine, marijuana and
methamphetamine seemed to slow for about a month after Sept. 11, but
resumed at record levels.

"Drug traffickers can't sit on their loads forever," he said. "They're
running a business. They have payrolls to meet."

It is not clear whether the seizure rates are climbing as a result of
intensified efforts by federal agents, the economics of drug dealing,
the brazenness of traffickers or a combination of factors. In any
case, border crossings are no longer the wave-through they used to
be, with a few simple questions and a quick visual check by an agent
at a gatehouse or pedestrian checkpoint.

Now, drivers are routinely asked where they are from, where they are
going and what is in their car, questions that can take a minute or
two versus the 20 to 30 seconds they once took. Some drivers are asked
to pop their hoods and open their trunks for further inspection,
causing backups of 45 minutes or longer. Pedestrians also face more
questions and are more likely to be patted down.

"We're doing more interviews, looking in more trunks and hoods,
talking to more people," said Joe Lafata, the port director. "The
whole process is taking longer, but it's much more thorough."

Inspectors have always had the discretion to pull a car out of line
for a second, more complete inspection. That, too, has intensified.
Agents are looking for drugs by tapping on door panels, peeking under
carpets and opening boxes. Sometimes the agents use drug-sniffing
dogs, and sometimes the names of the driver and passengers are checked
for outstanding warrants, the case with Mr. Garcia.

Patti Valenzuela, 32, who works in a Mexican art store in Tucson,
watched with a scowl as agents poked around inside her car. She said
she had crossed the border about 20 times in the last three months,
and this was the first time she was detained for a secondary search.

"It makes you feel safer," she said, a nod to the realities of
terrorism. "But in a way, I feel bad. It makes me feel like I did
something wrong."

Agents spent about 10 minutes with Ms. Valenzuela's car and found
nothing unusual. But with increasing regularity, that is not always
the case for other drivers. At the Nogales port of entry, which
includes two crossing points for vehicles, two for pedestrians and one
for a railroad line that now has a scanning device to X-ray every
train car, drug seizures have set records for every month since October.

The total for that five-month period through February, 206 seizures,
was a 121 percent increase over the 93 seizures in the same period a
year earlier.

Nationally, seizure of illegal drugs at all 301 ports of entry --
airports and seaports as well as border checkpoints -- increased by
17.1 percent in the last three months of 2001 compared with the same
period the year before, Customs Service figures show.

Here, it is not so much the rising numbers that agents say is
surprising. It is the traffickers' creativity.

"We're seeing mothers, fathers, grandmothers, even kids coming over
with drugs," said Patrick Christian, a customs agent. "It's hard to
comprehend and a lot more rampant than we realized."

Other agents said they had found drugs in gas tanks, radiators, false
floors, tires, door panels and, in the case of one recent female
pedestrian, a specially made girdle that hid several pounds of
methamphetamine.

The agents here have found no terrorists. But hardly a day goes by
when they do not find drugs.

"We are real cognizant of the fact we have to keep that weapon of mass
destruction from coming in," said Mr. Lafata, the port director.
"That's everybody's greatest fear. But we're real proud of the fact
we're seizing so many drugs. It has been our anti-terrorism dividend."