Pubdate: Mon, 05 Mar 2001 Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer (WA) Copyright: 2001 Seattle Post-Intelligencer Contact: P.O. Box 1909, Seattle, WA 98111-1909 Website: http://www.seattle-pi.com/ Author: Ben Fox ANTI-DRUG AUTHORITIES MAKE ANOTHER BIG COCAINE SEIZURE SAN DIEGO -- U.S. authorities unloaded 8.8 tons of cocaine yesterday that they said was seized on a rusty fishing boat off the coast of Mexico. It was the largest in a recent string of cocaine seizures, including one from a fishing boat off the Washington coast. The Coast Guard said a Navy destroyer with a Coast Guard law enforcement unit on board seized the boat Feb. 24 about 250 miles west of Acapulco. They towed the boat to San Diego. The seizure, which the Coast Guard said was the government's fourth-largest ever, capped what the agency called one of its most productive weeks of anti-drug patrols. In six days, the Coast Guard -- from Miami to the Caribbean, and in the Pacific from Mexico to Washington -- seized 28,845 pounds of cocaine, about what it captured in all of 1996. "We've never had a week like this where our border has been assaulted all the way from the Bahamas to Seattle," said Cmdr. Jim McPherson. During the string of seizures from Feb. 21 to Feb. 27, the agencies captured 5,538 pounds from a Canadian trawler off Washington's coast on Feb. 21, and 3,920 pounds from a small powerboat north of San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Feb. 25. In all, 24 people were arrested over the six-day period. Those arrested off Washington were held for several days in Immigration and Naturalization Service detention near Seattle, then turned over last week to Canadian authorities. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta praised the anti-drug effort. "Those engaged in drug trafficking are attempting to penetrate all of our borders," he said near a Coast Guard pier, where the 8.8 tons of cocaine were stacked neatly in large blocks on wooden pallets. The 10 crew members of the Belize-flagged boat, the "Forever My Friend," will face drug smuggling charges that carry a minimum 10-year sentence and a maximum of life in prison, U.S. Attorney Gregory Vega said. They were to appear in federal court in San Diego today. Eight of the men are from Nicaragua, one is from El Salvador and one from Ukraine. The cocaine was hidden in a secret compartment, buried under ice and fresh fish, authorities said. Agents wearing surgical masks and gloves and protective white jumpsuits, spent yesterday morning unloading the large blocks of cocaine from the Forever My Friend. Federal agents with automatic weapons guarded it on the pier. The string of recent seizures reflects a general increase in the amount of cocaine seized at sea by the Coast Guard working with the Navy, the Customs Service, Drug Enforcement Administration and other federal agencies. In 1999, the Coast Guard seized a record 55 tons of cocaine, which broke the previous high of 40.7 tons. Then in 2000, the agency captured 66 tons. The Coast Guard estimates that it catches only a small fraction of U.S.-bound cocaine, which is generally produced in Colombia and shipped either through the Caribbean or via the Pacific to Mexico to be smuggled overland into the United States through the Southwest. "We've put a dent in it, but we certainly haven't cut off the flow or driven the price of cocaine through the roof," said Capt. Joseph Conroy, chief of the agency's law enforcement division. Navy ships on anti-drug patrols travel with Coast Guard contingents on board because the U.S. military is prohibited from law enforcement activities. The Coast Guard, which is part of the Transportation Department, faces no such restriction. - --- MAP posted-by: Kirk Bauer