Pubdate: Wed, 30 May 2001
Source: National Public Radio (US)
Show: Morning Edition
Copyright: 2001 National Public Radio
Contact:  http://www.npr.org/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1296
Anchor: Bob Edwards
Reporter: Phillip Davis
Guests: Zach Mann (US Customs Special Agent), Juan Allende, Jeb Bush (Gov. 
Florida), Dino Bottiglieri

FAR-REACHING LAW ENFORCEMENT EFFORT IN MIAMI TO GET RID OF THE DRUG TRADE

BOB EDWARDS, host: This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News.  I'm Bob Edwards.

Think of Miami's waterfront and images of luxury cruise ships and expensive 
yachts come to mind.  Just around the bend from the glitter of Biscayne Bay 
and South Beach is another waterfront, the Miami River. It's a working 
river, filled with grimy freighters carrying every cargo imaginable, 
including most of the cocaine smuggled into Florida.  State and federal 
officials have launched an ambitious plan to clean up the Miami 
River.  NPR's Phillip Davis reports on Operation Riverwalk.

(Soundbite of ships)

PHILLIP DAVIS reporting:

At a steerage company hard by the Miami River, US Customs special agent 
Zach Mann(ph) strolls past cargo ships loading everything from used 
bicycles to mattresses.  He stops at a little nook in the river where some 
beaten-up freighters from Haiti are tied up side-by-side.

Mr. ZACH MANN (US Customs Special Agent): You've got the Brandy I(ph) with 
cocaine on it; the Danforth, cocaine on it; the Lienda(ph), cocaine on it. 
Since the operation has started, we've seized 10 vessels with either drugs 
actually on the ship, in the ship or the ship itself was somehow outfitted 
for smuggling, meaning that there were compartments inside the ship that 
were clearly designed and manufactured to hide drugs.

DAVIS: The Miami River is, in some respects, a smuggler's paradise and has 
been for centuries say local historians, who recently discovered abandoned 
pirate caves carved underneath several old buildings along the river.  Its 
five-mile length is crowded with docking companies that will take in almost 
any ship, no questions asked.  Authorities say they had long known that the 
river was a key transshipment point for Colombian cocaine coming over a 
loosely patrolled sea route from Haiti.  But last year when random 
inspections resulted in the seizure of more than 6,000 pounds of the drug, 
the state went on alert.  In February, Governor Jeb Bush announced that a 
task force named Operation Riverwalk would search every ship entering the 
river.

On a recent afternoon, just a few hundred yards from the seized freighters, 
a team from Customs, state police and the National Guard is swarming over 
the Prentemp(ph), an old cargo ship out of Cap-Haitien, Haiti.

Unidentified Woman: They didn't do no drilling in there, and we only 
drilled in the cargo hold the two places I mentioned, OK.  Thank you very 
much, Captain.

DAVIS: Senior inspector Juan Allende(ph) emerges from the hole, his 
disposable overalls covered in grease and grime.

Mr. JUAN ALLENDE: You've got to be really meticulous in your search. It 
could be anywhere from like behind the wall, there might be dead space so 
you have to open it up.  There's hatches, oil--contains oil, contains 
diesel, so you've got to wear certain equipment like masks and breathing 
apparatus.  So it's a long process.  Sometimes ships, we can search it for 
two or three days.

DAVIS: The captain of the Prentemp, who won't give his name, maintains his 
ship is clean.  He smokes a cigarette, a polite smile fixed on his face as 
he watches Customs agents poke around his vessel.  He says he knows they're 
just doing their job.  But, he says, he's been running the river for years 
and doubts anyone can clean it up.

Unidentified Captain: I've been running the river a long time.  I've been 
running all over the water.  This is about the worst part I will 
see.  They've cut it down, but if they clean it right up, too much money 
and work in it.

DAVIS: But Florida Governor Jeb Bush says the operation has been a success. 
So far in the operation's first three months, government agents seized more 
than 3,400 pounds of cocaine.  But by this month the amounts have trailed 
off dramatically, along with the number of freighters coming in from the 
Caribbean. At a briefing earlier this month on the riverfront, Governor 
Bush said that's a sign that trafficking routes have been disrupted.

Governor JEB BUSH (Florida): These freighters actually are now being found 
in places like Cape Canaveral and in Tampa.  There's a sighting in 
Savannah.  So the impact, though, is the cost of doing business goes up 
each time that you make it a little bit harder.

DAVIS: Bush and other officials hope the cleanup of the river will solidify 
a renaissance that's just beginning along this long-neglected area.  Miami 
politicians want to put a baseball stadium along the riverbank downtown. 
Property values are rising and trendy riverside restaurants are beginning 
to pop up.  At Big Fish, one of the first, you can dock your boat right by 
your table. Dino Bottiglieri, the restaurant's owner, said part of the 
area's charm is that it still is a working river.

(Soundbite of ambient noise)

Mr. DINO BOTTIGLIERI: It's the magic, it's the magic of the place. People 
love to see that.  People will pay to sit down, have a glass of water and 
see the freighters go back and forth.

DAVIS: There's a long way to go.  The view from the restaurant includes a 
vacant lot and a rusting blue tanker seized in a drug bust. Hundreds of 
tons of cocaine still come through Florida every year, but businesspeople 
and government officials hope that within a few years, Chardonnay will have 
replaced cocaine as the intoxicant of choice along the Miami 
River.  Phillip Davis, NPR News, Miami.
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