Pubdate: Thu, 28 Sep 2000
Source: USA Today (US)
Copyright: 2000 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.
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Website: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nfront.htm
Author: Donna Leinwand, USA Today

COAST GUARD COCAINE SEIZURES SET RECORD

WASHINGTON - Shifting its resources from the Caribbean to the Pacific 
and making use of armed helicopters and beefed-up intelligence, the 
Coast Guard seized record amounts of cocaine in the past 12 months.  

As of Monday, the Coast Guard had seized 125,904 pounds of cocaine 
worth about $4 billion - more than four times the bounty seized in 
1996. During the same period in 1999, the agency seized 111,689 pounds. 

The Coast Guard will announce its total haul from the past year at a 
ceremony today honoring 12 officers and crew.  

Coordinated intelligence among agencies and enforcement pressure in the 
Caribbean and along Mexico are pushing smugglers from their traditional 
and easiest routes, says retired general Barry McCaffrey, head of the 
White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.  

"What we see now is smugglers going 600 miles into the Pacific to get 
out from the Coast Guard surveillance, and they can't do it," McCaffrey 
says.  

For the first time, the Coast Guard made most of its busts - 82% - in 
the Pacific, compared with 38% last year, says Cmdr. Jim McPherson, a 
Coast Guard spokesman. He expects smugglers to react to the increased 
patrols in the Pacific by altering their routes again. "It's a very 
complicated cat-and-mouse game," he says.  

Despite stepped-up patrols and improved intelligence, plenty of cocaine 
gets into the USA. Intelligence reports from the Defense Department, 
Coast Guard and other agencies estimate that 690,000 pounds flowed into 
the USA in the first six months of 2000.  

The Coast Guard, the primary maritime enforcement agency, patrols a 6-
million-square-mile transit zone roughly the size of the USA with 43 
cutters; 49, 110-foot patrol boats; 44, 82-foot patrol boats; and two 
attack helicopters.  

"Smugglers outnumber the Coast Guard," McPherson says. "But I think 
that we can conclude from this year that the Coast Guard and other law 
enforcement agencies can be very successful."  

"We're a long way from having shut them down," says Coast Guard Vice 
Adm. Ray Riutta. "We've taken a lot of cocaine off the water. But we 
just don't have enough resources, and there's an awful lot of ocean out 
there."  

Cocaine smugglers generally travel at night, often using "go-fast" 
motorboats painted the color of the sea. The smugglers have 
sophisticated radar, night goggles and black wetsuits. The powerboats, 
which can carry 2,000 pounds of cocaine, travel at 50 knots, more than 
twice the speed of a cutter.  

This year, the Coast Guard began trailing the "go-fast" boats with 
armed helicopters. If the boat outran a cutter, the helicopter crew 
dropped nets to trap the boat and shot into the boat's engines until 
the cutter could catch up.  

In six helicopter attempts, the Coast Guard made six seizures, 
McPherson says. Without the attack helicopters, the Coast Guard stopped 
about one in 10 "go-fast" boats.  

"They would go past our cutters and wave," McPherson says. "They can 
outrun our boats, but they can't outrun our helicopters."  
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