WEAPONS THAT FUEL ISLAND'S DRUG WAR OFTEN FROM FLORIDA

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- More than 200 Puerto Rico police officers and
federal agents with assault rifles and sidearms swarm out of a station
near San Juan in the middle of the night.

After piling into three caravans, they speed off in different
directions -- but the mission is the same: Confiscate as many illegal
guns and drugs as possible and arrest the dealers.

They sweep through several neighboring towns, public-housing projects
in the inner city and apartment buildings in the suburbs.

By the time they return to the station at daybreak, they have rounded
up 58 suspected drug and weapons dealers, 25 illegal guns and a few
pounds of cocaine and marijuana.

Raids such as this, which happened Thursday, have become routine as
local and federal authorities struggle to bring drug-related violence
under control on this island slightly larger than Delaware and home to
almost 4 million people.

As of Friday, 161 people had been killed this year in Puerto Rico, 50
more than last year during the same period. The majority of them were
casualties of an ongoing war between rival drug gangs -- many of them
armed with guns shipped to the island from Florida, a problem
highlighted by the March 5 security breach at Orlando International
Airport in which 14 guns were smuggled aboard a flight to San Juan.

Puerto Rico's location has long made it a transshipment point for
drugs moving from Colombia to the United States. Guns are the tools of
this trade, and dealers just can't get enough of them, authorities
say.

"When Kmart and Wal-Mart fight for customers, they lower their prices
to drive the competition out of the market," said Waldo Santiago, a
spokesman with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in Puerto Rico.

"These drug organizations are less sophisticated. To drive you out of
the market, they kill you," Santiago said.

New Drug War

The latest drug war in Puerto Rico started in February, when police
arrested Alexander Capo Carrillo, 23, alias Alex Trujillo.

Trujillo, police say, controlled 15 drug-distribution points, or
puntos, in various housing projects in the San Juan metropolitan area.

With Trujillo no longer in the picture, his puntos were now up for
grabs. Gangs went to war with Trujillo's men, and the bodies began to
pile up.

About a week ago, police arrested six suspected members of Trujillo's
gang who had surrounded a building at a San Juan area public-housing
project. An anonymous tipster told police the gang was there to
"massacre" several members of a rival group trying to move in on its
territory.

In the arrest, police confiscated a 30-shot PLR-16 pistol, two Glock
pistols, two Ruger pistols, an AK-47 rifle and hundreds of rounds of
ammunition.

"Drugs and guns go together because guns are a necessity to move the
drugs," said Col. Jose R. Denis Tavares, who heads the Puerto Rico
police drugs and narcotics division.

"Drug gangs need guns to earn respect, intimidate, defend their
territory and take revenge," Denis said.

Reason for Hope

But recent statistics are giving Puerto Ricans some
hope.

In 1999, according to a Puerto Rico government study, half of all
cocaine flowing to the United States -- about 275 tons -- came through
the Caribbean. Of that, half came through Puerto Rico, and as much as
20 percent stayed.

Recent numbers by the same government organization show that the
cocaine moving through the island has been reduced to 5.5 tons, of
which 3 percent supplies the local market.

This reduction, Santiago said, is because of efforts from local and
federal agencies to block trafficking, as well as improved radar
detection of aircraft.

Many smugglers, as a result, have moved their operations through the
island of Hispaniola, Santiago said.

That means the turf battles among Puerto Rico's gangs are becoming
more violent because they are fighting for a dwindling supply of drugs.

What remains are the scars left by years of gang warfare and drug use
in some of the island's poorest areas.

And a new generation of anti-drug advocates is moving in to reclaim
those areas.

"It is very difficult, but we are doing it." said Roxana De Soto,
executive director of the Alliance for a Drug-Free Puerto Rico. The
group offers kids and adults in high-risk areas healthy alternatives
such as music classes, career training and counseling.

"Prevention is key, and it is up to each of us, and each family --
each mother, aunt or grandmother -- to do that one child at a time.
Only then, will we achieve our goal of a drug-free Puerto Rico," De
Soto said.