DRUG SMUGGLING RETURNS TO NORMAL AFTER 9/11 LULL

Drug smuggling in South Texas has returned to pre-Sept. 11 levels after an
initial two-week lull, even as such law enforcement groups as U.S. Customs
and the Coast Guard shift their focus from trafficking to anti-terrorism.

In the 14 days following the attacks on New York City and Washington D.C.,
drug seizures in South Texas slowed to a trickle as enhanced security along
the border caused smugglers to sit on their loads.

Immediately after the attacks, Customs went to its highest level of
response, Alert Level 1, in which inspectors examine almost every person
and vehicle crossing the border. The result was two-hour lines at some
ports of entry and, at least at first, caution from smugglers.

"Drug traffickers are criminals, but like legitimate businessmen they have
to make payroll," said Customs spokesman Kevin Bell. "After awhile, they
couldn't continue to sit on these loads."

Since Sept. 24, Customs cocaine seizures in South Texas have more than
tripled compared to the same time last year. Customs agents have seized
more than 2,000 pounds more of marijuana than they did last year over the
same time period.

Border Patrol agents in South Texas have been equally busy. From Oct. 1 to
Oct. 17, Border Patrol agents in the McAllen sector, which includes U.S.
Highways 77 and 281 and their checkpoints, seized more marijuana and
cocaine than the other eight Border Patrol sectors on the Mexican border
combined.

In those 17 days, the McAllen Sector seized more than $39 million worth of
narcotics.

Eligio Peqa, assistant agent in charge at the Falfurrias Border Patrol
station, said the weeks after the attacks saw a sharp decrease in drug
cases, which have since picked back up at the nation's busiest drug checkpoint.

At the Falfurrias checkpoint, the amount of cocaine and marijuana seized
between Sept. 11 and Oct. 31 dropped by 2,076 pounds, or about 20 percent.
The checkpoint seized almost 70 percent of the marijuana it caught in
September before the attacks.

While it's largely business as usual for the land-based drug interdiction
agencies, the mission for South Texas Coast Guard members and airborne
Customs officers has changed drastically.

Nationally, 75 percent of Coast Guard resources are directed at patrolling
the country's ports. Before Sept. 11, the Coast Guard expended a negligible
amount of energy on port security. Those resources are now taken from other
peacetime goals, such as drug interdiction.

"We are doing some drug interdictions, but it is making it harder for us to
interdict drugs," said Coast Guard spokesman Rick Wester. "We're not down
where we should be."

According to Drug Enforcement Administration Chief Asa Hutchinson,
traffickers are taking advantage of the Coast Guard's absence and increased
their output by 25 percent in the Caribbean in the month after the attacks.

For the Customs Service's Surveillance Support Center at Naval Air
Station-Corpus Christi, the future appears to lie in homeland security. The
center, one of two in the country that operate radar planes, used to do
about 90 percent of its work in drug-producing countries, especially Colombia.

All that changed Sept. 11 The station's P-3 radar planes have been drafted
by the Pentagon for radar and tracking missions over the United States.

(Contact Jeremy Schwartz of the Caller-Times in Corpus Christi, Texas, at
http://www.caller.com.)