Pubdate: Wed, 01 Nov 2000
Source: Miami Herald (FL)
Copyright: 2000 The Miami Herald
Contact:  One Herald Plaza, Miami FL 33132-1693
Fax: (305) 376-8950
Website: http://www.herald.com/
Forum: http://krwebx.infi.net/webxmulti/cgi-bin/WebX?mherald
Author: David Green

PANEL TAKES AIM AT DRUG-SMUGGLING

A congressional subcommittee held hearings to find ways to fight the problem.

Using sophisticated surveillance cameras, federal agents watch dock workers 
unloading cargo from ships.

Suddenly, an "accident" disables the camera. By the time agents scramble to 
the scene, it's too late -- workers have already offloaded a cache of cocaine.

Scenarios like this are all too common in South Florida's ports: The Port 
of Miami and Port Everglades led the nation in cocaine seized in the United 
States during the late 1990s, according to the U.S. Customs Service.

This reality brought members of the U.S. House Subcommittee on Criminal 
Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources to Port Everglades on Tuesday. 
They held hearings to figure out what can be done to combat what one 
official called a "plague" of drug-smuggling.

"We do have a problem in Florida," Jim McDonough, director of the Florida 
Drug Control Policy Office, told the congressional panel. "We have a [drug] 
problem on the demand side; we have a problem on the supply side."

It was the supply side that officials focused on Tuesday. The panel, which 
included U.S. Reps. Clay Shaw and John Mica, heard testimony that roughly 
65 percent of the cocaine that comes into the United States arrives through 
Florida -- the vast majority of which is smuggled through South Florida's 
two major ports.

Authorities have been clamping down during the past two years. The 
crackdown is part of a cooperative effort between federal, state and local 
law enforcement agencies.

Examples: Two weeks ago, federal agents seized $1.5 million worth of 
marijuana and $8.4 million in cocaine from Port Everglades container ships. 
In March, agents arrested six Port Everglades workers accused of smuggling 
in thousands of pounds of cocaine and marijuana.

Last week, Customs seized nearly $11 million worth of cocaine and marijuana 
on the Miami River, according to Mica.

The result of the crackdown: This year, Puerto Rico and Tampa replaced Port 
Everglades and the Port of Miami as the sites of the country's greatest 
volume of cocaine seizures, according to Bob McNamara, director of field 
operations for South Florida at the U.S. Customs Service.

But officials acknowledged there were still glitches in security.

Officials now conduct background checks of all workers. Depending on when 
they were hired, those with felony convictions in the past five to 10 years 
are fired. But the Port of Miami has a lengthy appeals process -- which can 
allow workers with shady histories to stay on the job while exhausting 
their appeals.

Roughly 20 percent of South Florida port workers have been convicted of 
felonies, McNamara testified.

"There are individuals who have problems who are still there," acknowledged 
Chuck Towsley, director of the Port of Miami.

Among the prescriptions offered by those who testified: Forbid port workers 
from parking personal vehicles near offloading sites; install checkpoints 
along access roads at Port Everglades; beef up security along the Miami 
River, where a significant portion of the cocaine smuggled into Miami is 
offloaded.

An official from the dockworker's union said longshoremen were being 
unfairly targeted.

"To even suggest that they, as a workforce, are any less trustworthy, is 
demeaning," testified Art Coffey, vice president of the Florida 
International Longshoreman Association.

"They're not a bit less concerned than fathers, brothers and mothers of 
their counterparts who work inland."
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