AUTHORITIES SAY I-90 BECOMING WEST-TO-EAST DRUG CORRIDOR

DEADWOOD -- The nation's war on drugs now cuts across South Dakota as
more drug smugglers drive Interstate 90 to haul dope from the West
Coast, state authorities say.

The case of Alfredo "Pedro" Chavez, 32, is a prime example,
authorities said in court documents.

The illegal immigrant from Mexico was pulled over by a South Dakota
Highway Patrol trooper in Spearfish in September 2000.

A search yielded a hidden compartment in his gas tank that contained
18 pounds of cocaine -- the largest such seizure in the state at that
time. Authorities also found about a pound of methamphetamine and 4
pounds of marijuana, court documents said.

Chavez said he was traveling from Seattle to North Carolina. His case
was thrown out of federal court on grounds the stop and search were
illegal. But he is scheduled to stand trial March 13 in Deadwood on
state drug possession charges.

Lawrence County State's Attorney John Fitzgerald won't talk about the
Chavez case because of the pending trial. But he said that in 21 years
of being a prosecutor in Butte and Lawrence counties, he's seen more
drug trafficking along I-90.

"This was a giant case," Fitzgerald said of the Chavez case at a
December hearing in Deadwood. "This is a giant amount of drugs coming
through on I-90."

Chavez had been deported from the United States and has "come back
across the border repeatedly to smuggle drugs for a living," the
prosecutor said in court. Chavez "is a drug smuggler working for
cartels that import large quantities of heroin and cocaine into the
country," he said.

Fitzgerald said it's not just the drugs he knows about that concern
him -- but the drugs he doesn't know about. Authorities are catching 1
percent or less of the drugs moving on I-90, he said.

Drug couriers are more likely to be arrested on Interstates 70 and 80
to the south because there are more law enforcement officers and drug
dogs patrolling those thoroughfares. That means more smugglers are
using I-90, he said.

"Because we have so little law enforcement and drug dogs, they're
smuggling drugs across the state every day, large quantities,"
Fitzgerald said at the hearing. "It's not uncommon. It's just hard to
catch them."

He and Col. Tom Dravland, South Dakota Highway Patrol superintendent,
said drug dogs are the only way to catch most smugglers.

"That's why we got them because if you're running drugs, you
generally don't leave it on the seat of your car as you're going down
the road. You put it in a bag in the trunk or build secret
compartments in the car," Dravland said.

The patrol started the canine program in 1991 with two dogs and now
has 11 dogs with troopers stationed around the state. Officers need a
reason to stop a vehicle for a traffic violation but then can use dogs
if they suspect something, he said.

Dravland said a federal grant covers the $50,000 to $60,000 annual
cost of the canine program. It's worth it, he said.

From 1998 through 2001 alone, the Highway Patrol drug dogs led
troopers to arrest people for 3,510 crimes, Dravland said. That
includes multiple crimes against some of the same people and doesn't
include those arrested by local law enforcement agencies assisted by
the patrol, he said.