Pubdate: Fri, 30 Jun 2006 Source: USA Today (US) Copyright: 2006 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc Contact: http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/index.htm Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/466 Author: William M. Welch, USA TODAY Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Marijuana) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine) U.S., CANADIAN OFFICIALS BUST DARING DRUG-SMUGGLING RING LOS ANGELES -- Federal investigators said Thursday that they had broken an extensive criminal network that used fast, low-flying helicopters to smuggle a potent form of marijuana across the border from Canada through remote Western public lands. The smugglers sometimes returned to British Columbia with loads of cocaine from the USA aboard the same aircraft, authorities said. Joined by Canadian law enforcement authorities, officials with U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement and other agencies said at a news conference in Bellingham, Wash., that 45 people have been indicted in the USA and more than 40 arrested as a result of the two-year investigation. They called it one of the most brazen criminal schemes ever uncovered along the 4,000-mile U.S. border with Canada. "They're thrill junkies," said Leigh Winchell, special agent in charge of ICE's office of special investigations in Seattle. "It's a game of cat and mouse to them." He said pilots flew 50 feet over treetops and swooped through mountain passes to deliver cargos of "B.C. Bud," a form of marijuana cultivated by growers in British Columbia and considered highly desirable for its potency by U.S. consumers. U.S. and Canadian authorities seized 8,000 pounds of marijuana and roughly 800 pounds of cocaine from the operation, they said, along with three aircraft and $1.5 million in U.S. cash. Those involved in the actual transporting rented out their aviation services to various drug enterprises. "It's really the first time we were able to discover and take down a large-scale aerial smuggling operation between the U.S. and Canada," said Julie Myers, assistant secretary of Homeland Security for ICE. There is no evidence that the smugglers brought terrorists across the border, Myers said. But she and others said the penetration raised broad border-security concerns. "We look at this not as a narcotics case but an issue of national security," Winchell said. The pilots dropped drug shipments to contacts waiting in rugged, remote areas of the North Cascades National Park as well as the Okanogan and Mount Baker-Snoqualmie national forests in Washington state. Authorities released surveillance video and photos of some of the smugglers' drops of hundreds of pounds of cargo to contacts waiting with pickups. The smugglers, he said, took advantage of vast, mountainous terrain where humans are rarely seen and travel is impossible in colder months. Michael Kostelnik, assistant commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, said the bust, called Operation Frozen Timber, shows that the government cannot ignore its northern border even as national attention focuses on securing the border with Mexico. "The northern border -- honestly, we don't know what's happening in a lot of these areas," he said. John McKay, U.S. attorney for the western district of Washington, said one of those arrested, whom he identified as Robert Kesling, has already been sentenced to 17 years in federal prison in connection with the case. Most of those indicted are charged with illegal importation of controlled substances and related charges, Winchell said. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake