SEIZURES OF DRUGS OVERSTATED

WASHINGTON -- Federal agencies that oversee drug seizures on the high
seas are double- and triple-counting the same cocaine confiscations,
according to an investigation by the auditing arm of Congress.

The U.S. Coast Guard, Customs Service and Department of Defense are
each taking credit for many of their joint seizures and presenting
them to Congress as if they acted alone, the General Accounting
Office says in a report to be released Monday. A copy of the GAO
report was obtained by Knight Ridder.

GAO investigators reviewed 26 cocaine seizures in fiscal years 1998,
1999 and 2000 in the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, the northern
coast of South America and the Eastern Pacific. They found that the
Coast Guard and Customs each took credit for 16 of them. The exact
amount of drugs seized was not disclosed.

The Defense Department also took credit for numerous seizures in the
same drug transit area, where about 645 metric tons of cocaine were
smuggled into the United States during 2000.

Federal anti-drug agencies confiscated 118,398 kilograms of cocaine
in 1998, 118,398 kilos in 1999, and 132,318 kilos in 2000, according
to Office of National Drug Control Policy figures. A kilogram is 2.2
pounds.

In press releases, the agencies mentioned when other agencies helped,
but some lawmakers have frowned on the practice of double-counting
because it skews seizure statistics and gives the impression that
each agency played the lead role in the interdictions.

Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., a former U.S. drug prosecutor, requested
the GAO investigation.