cannabisnews.com: Drug Smugglers and Cops Match Wits!





Drug Smugglers and Cops Match Wits!
Posted by FoM on January 16, 1999 at 12:05:58 PT

INDIANAPOLIS Dean Wildauer knows it's out there. Dangling a cigarette out the window of his Indiana State Police cruiser, the trooper squints at the traffic roaring eastbound on Interstate 70 through a light rain. 
It could be stashed in duffle bags in the back of that rented Lexus. Or maybe tucked inside the side panels of that minivan. It could be taped inside the tires of a new car on that car carrier or hidden in a washing machine in that moving van. Indiana is carved by Interstates 65, 70 and 80, earning it the title "Crossroads of America." While it's a charming label if you are touring the Midwest, it's a harsh reality if you're trying to stop drug traffic. In 1919, when a young soldier named Dwight D. Eisenhower first thought up the idea of an interstate highway system, he envisioned broad "ribbons across the land," allowing for faster travel and military deployment. Today, Wildauer and cops like him all over the country see the interstates as 24-hour pipelines that supply illegal drugs to rural high schools and big-city streets. State troopers and southwest border agents assigned to stop the flow coordinate their efforts through Operation Pipeline, a federal Drug Enforcement Administration program active in every state. Those officers are equipped with fiberscopes that allow them to peer into gas tanks, density meters that show when something's stuffed in a door or tire, giant border X-rays that can see into tractor trailers. Sometimes, authorities even load busted drug couriers and their vehicles onto military cargo jets and fly them to their delivery points so authorities can make drug deliveries and arrest those on the receiving end. Since 1990, authorities have pulled more than 1.5 million pounds of marijuana and more than 207,000 pounds of cocaine off U.S. highways and interstates, according to the DEA. That includes more than 170,000 pounds of marijuana and more than 19,000 pounds of cocaine in the first eight months of 1998. Still, state and federal officials estimate, nine out of 10 drug shipments on the interstate highways get through. The only way to dry them up, Wildauer says, would be to stop and search every car. In the early 1980s, state troopers in New Mexico and New Jersey noticed a trend. More routine traffic stops along interstates were turning into sizable drug busts. The two states independently set up highway interdiction programs and before long saw a jump in drug seizures. They began sharing information with other states on how to turn moving violations into major drug arrests. In 1984, this cooperation grew into Operation Pipeline. The program trains officers on traffic details to look for things that don't make sense. Do the lug nuts look shiny? Maybe they've been removed recently to stash drugs in the tires. See any shiny screw heads that should be painted over? Any out-of-place weld marks? Those could also point to hiding places. Nearly 50 courses were taught last year, training about 4,000 officers across the country. But the heart of the program is the daily intelligence supplied to the field by EPIC. This recent case from Oklahoma typifies how it works: An Oklahoma Highway Patrol officer pulls a car over because it was weaving. The two people in it act nervous and give conflicting stories. One says they are coming from Dallas, the other says Houston. Suspicious, the officer calls EPIC and asks for a check on the car and its occupants. EPIC has access to databases on drug cases from the FBI, DEA and U.S. Customs. It also keeps track of all highway stops called in to the center. The EPIC search finds that the vehicle crossed the border at Laredo, Texas, about eight hours earlier. A drug-sniffing dog is called in and alerts officers to the trunk. A search reveals 20 kilos of cocaine. Calls like this pour into the center's main operations room, keeping the phones ringing around the clock. The center receives about 30,000 calls per year. Despite Operation Pipeline, the drug business -- worth $52 billion a year in the U.S. according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy -- remains one step ahead. Drug organizations run communications networks that tell couriers which roads police are patrolling most. They use drivers, such as senior citizens, who don't fit the stereotype of drug runners. "Hauling dope, it has no race, it has no religion," Wildauer says. "Age doesn't matter. I've locked up a grandmother and her grandkids for hauling marijuana." The illegal drug business pays its drivers so well, authorities say, that most will go to jail rather than inform on higher-ups. The going rate for transporting marijuana is around $100 per pound, with loads ranging anywhere from a couple pounds to several hundred. Drugs are often stashed in hidden compartments of cars or trucks, but authorities have seen cocaine molded into pottery or even heated to a liquid state and soaked into bulk packages of clothing. When authorities figure out where drugs are being hidden, concealment methods change, creating a daily cat-and-mouse game on interstates and along the Mexican border. Noel Ordonez, a U.S. Customs inspector with glaring eyes and a sixth sense that goes off when something's not right, has worked three ports of entry along the Mexican border, questioning thousands of drivers crossing each year. He loves outsmarting drug couriers, but he knows the multibillion dollar drug business is beating him and everyone else along the 2,000-mile border senseless. This doesn't make Ordonez want to give up. "Every 100 pounds of pot I catch is another 100 pounds that won't wind up in some high school somewhere," he says as another big truck pulls up to his booth. "And I know how to find the dope." Ordonez looks for drivers who won't make eye contact, the ones tapping the steering wheel nervously. He questions drivers if he sees a key chain with only one key on it. Why no house key? He is suspicious of those who seem unfamiliar with their vehicles. Along with cars, about 1,000 commercial trucks pass through El Paso's Ysleta Port of Entry each day. More and more, drug dealers are using big trucks to conceal their goods. When Ordonez is suspicious of a truck, he sends it to the docks to be unloaded and searched. Some trucks are driven through a massive X-ray that scans the tractor and trailer. On average, about 100 trucks a day will be scrutinized; the rest pass through unsearched. At the Paso del Norte Port of Entry, which links downtown El Paso with the bustling Mexican city of Juarez, 10 lanes of automobiles stretch in lines several blocks long. Inspectors in dark-blue uniforms move through the lines, tapping their hands on the sides of vehicles, pounding small hammers against tires and hunching over to point flashlights into wheel wells. Employees of the drug smugglers watch, noticing which inspectors are being the most thorough. The men use cell phones to tell couriers which lanes to avoid. A banged-up GMC van with tan and burgundy stripes pulls up to a customs booth. The driver nervously rolls down the window, releasing a strong scent of air freshener. Is he trying to hide something? An inspector directs the van to a parking area. A drug-sniffing dog circles the vehicle, stops midway down the driver's side and barks. Inspectors rip out the van's inside panels, exposing 20 bricks of marijuana -- about 140 pounds worth nearly $500,000 on the street. Andrew Turner congratulates his dog, Willie, on the find and gives high-fives to the other inspectors gathered to check out the score. "This," Turner says, "makes it all worthwhile." But the inspectors are aware that while they were tied up with this bust, several other loads probably went through. Smugglers, an agent explains, will sometimes allow themselves to get caught with a load of pot so a colleague can sneak a stash of cocaine through while the inspectors are busy. "We know that they're doing it," the agent says, "but how can we stop all of them?" Due east of El Paso, Sgt. Lynn Calamia of the Louisiana State Police is wondering the same thing. His state is carved by two drug pipelines, Interstate 20 in the north and I-10 in the south. Calamia heads state police interdiction efforts. In the first seven months of 1998, his 25-person team confiscated more than $15.8 million in drugs on Louisiana interstates. "It's always coming through," Calamia says. "All hours of the day and night." Just that morning, in fact, one of his patrols in Covington, La., pulled over a weaving car. The two women in it gave conflicting stories, prompting the officer to ask for consent to search. In the trunk he found a huge tin of coffee creamer, an odd thing to take on a trip. A closer look revealed the tin had a hidden compartment holding a little over a pound of crack cocaine. Calamia has seen gas cylinders on the back of a truck that had been cut open, stuffed with drugs, resealed and pressurized. He's seen cars rigged with intricate trick compartments: turn on the defroster, click the turn signal and wiggle the gear shift all at once and the passenger side air bag compartment lifts open. The key to highway interdiction, said Lt. Col. Ronnie Jones, deputy superintendent of operations for the Louisiana State Police, is pulling over as many vehicles as possible. One Louisiana interdiction officer, for example, will pull over 40 to 50 a day. "Unfortunately," Jones said, "an awful lot of people probably get through with dope and are laughing at us from somewhere." Back in Indiana, Wildauer sits in the shadow of an overpass, waiting for the next traffic violation, the next potential drug bust. "We're a Band-Aid over a bullet wound," he says. "We may slow the bleeding, but we'll never stop it." 
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