Source: THE ORLANDO SENTINEL April 27, 1997 A SECTION; Pg. A1 Orlando Sentinel (Orlando, FL);;;Destination Florida ORLANDO SENTINAL ORLANDO FL 13054075661; HOTSHOT PILOTS ENJOY CHASING SMUGGLERS; THE CUSTOMS SERVICE AIR TEAM'S MAIN JOB: KEEP SELLERS FROM SLIPPING DRUGS INTO PUERTO RICO. By Jim Leusner and Henry Pierson Curtis of The Sentinel Staff Copyright (c) 1997, Sentinel Communications Co. The catandmouse game of chasing drug smugglers begins when the sun sets fiery red in the Caribbean. The playing field covers 6 million square miles of water. The goal is Puerto Rico. Smugglers head there aboard almost anything that floats or flies. The job of protecting the 311mile coastline belongs to many, but the primary line of defense is the group of pilots wearing shoulder patches depicting a helicopter and a skull and crossbones. They call themselves The Flying Mofongo Brothers. Jokingly named after a local dish of baked plantains, the pilots are members of the U.S. Customs Service Air Branch. With up to 12,000 hours of flying time each, they are some of the hottest pilots anywhere. They patrol a 150mile sweep around Puerto Rico, from the tip of the Dominican Republic in the west to beyond the British Virgin Islands in the east. The island is increasingly important in the nation's drugfighting strategy. Once drugs get ashore in Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, there are no further customs checks to keep them from reaching the mainland. "When the sun goes down, we get busy," said John Fillmore, a customs air group supervisor. "There's been smuggling here for 400 years. A little customs involvement isn't going to stop that." "But one seizure of 1,000 pounds of coke is 1,000 pounds that's not going to hit the street." At least 25 percent of the U.S. supply of cocaine passes through the eastern Caribbean and Puerto Rico, federal drug officials say. Earlier this month, the heads of customs, the FBI and U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration all pledged more money, manpower and equipment to step up the drug war in the region. "Drug smuggling in the '70s was across the southwest border," said pilot Dan Philipps, a 12year customs veteran. "In the '80s, it was Miami. And now in the '90s, it's Puerto Rico." The air crews work up to 15hour days looking for airborne smugglers and suspicious ships, comparing notes with the Navy, Coast Guard and island police. Some used to do similar flying along the Mexican border, but pilots say drug flights dropped sharply when the North American Free Trade Agreement opened the border to easy vehicle traffic. Last year, the unit helped seize nearly 12 tons of cocaine, 7,500 pounds of marijuana and 45 vessels, resulting in 67 arrests. So far this year, nearly 4 tons of cocaine and seven vessels were seized, capped by 19 arrests. The trails of smugglers keep changing. A few years ago, they routinely flew 520 miles at night from Colombia's north coast to Puerto Rico and dropped waterproof bales of cocaine to waiting fishing boats. Lately, the drug flights have avoided Puerto Rico and headed instead for the Lesser Antilles. There, the planes circle St. Maarten and other picturepostcard islands until dropping their drug loads at prearranged map coordinates to speedboats below. Smugglers hire top pilots The patrols often are long and boring and sometimes there are weeks between seizures. The unit averages four or five seizures a month. The latest came April 13, when they alerted St. Kitts island police to a plane seen dumping 300 pounds of cocaine offshore. The plane then fled back to Venezuela. The smugglers often fly twinengine planes and appear as skilled as the customs pilots who chase them, Fillmore said. Some are thought to be former South American military pilots, possibly trained in the United States. "We try to be at the right place at the right time with the right equipment," said Fillmore, 45, who previously worked at Port Canaveral. "It's like finding a needle in a haystack. But we find a lot of needles." One find came last month when a customs plane spotted small boats heading by night to Norman Island in the British Virgin Islands. A helicopter was dispatched, and its crew found fresh footprints from the beach to a rocky area nearby. British authorities later found 390 kilos 858 pounds of cocaine hidden in the rocks. The smugglers in that case escaped. To avoid detection they often have the latest in radio, radar and navigation equipment and sometimes the help of corrupt police. Even the smallest smuggling boats, known as yolas, are equipped with handheld satellite navigation devices to help pinpoint coordinates within 100 feet. Drug pilots use the same gear to fly in the dark and drop bales of cocaine to the waiting boat crews. Satellite telephones, which make it easy to talk to bosses in South America or Puerto Rico, have been found aboard some smugglers' boats. Some ride so low in the water that only the tops of their 150horsepower outboard engines are visible. Covered with fiberglass or wood, the custommade craft carry up to 1,000 pounds of cocaine, ride out 10foot seas and make 20 knots in calmer waters. The unit's 28 fulltime pilots and six pilots and sensor operators on 30day tours try to even the odds with four helicopters, eight twinengine airplanes and plenty of hightech equipment of their own. Three of the airplanes are 300mph Piper Cheyennes with long noses loaded with radar and Forward Looking InfraRed scanners. FLIR, as it's known, turns night into day to let customs air crews watch smugglers without being detected. FLIR videotapes that show smugglers dropping bales of drugs from airplanes are used in court to help convict them. FLIR and radar operators still remain in short supply. Three boxey Australianmade Nomads are among the unit's most heavily used airplanes. They can circle for hours while the pilot, copilot and FLIR operator stake out a boat or landing strip. When radar detects a suspicious airplane or drug agents call in a tip, customs crews have 10 minutes to get airborne. Speed is important because the flight to the Virgin Islands can take an hour. Copters use night vision Flying at 200 mph at 2,000 feet, pilots hunt their prey with lights off, relying on the array of radar, infrared sensors and nightvision goggles. Officers with submachine guns ride in the rear of helicopters in case they need to pursue smugglers on the ground. The unit's pair of Blackhawk military helicopters is one of its main weapons for chasing boats and planes. Painted black, they carry extra fuel tanks and a 30 million candlepower spotlight nicknamed "the 10ton flashlight." Pilot Philipps used his Blackhawk to help nab five crewmen in December on a speedboat that beached on a reef near Salinas on Puerto Rico's south coast. Using the helicopter's 100mph rotor winds, he blew water into the faces of suspects trying to swim away and steered them to a reef where customs officers waited. About 1,100 kilos of cocaine was recovered. "You can blow dust in their face if they're on the ground or push water in their face in the water," said Philipps, who flew medical evacuation helicopters during the Vietnam War. "It's just another useful tool when you've got nothing else going for you." In September, he helped intercept 1,500 kilos of cocaine 3,300 pounds dropped with phosphorescent glow sticks in fields 60 miles south of San Juan. Philipps' Blackhawk surprised the smugglers' accomplices searching the fields for the drugs. Two were later arrested. Mofongo pilots show up for work at an old hangar at the former Ramey U.S. Air Force Base in Puerto Rico's northwest corner. Despite the unit's hightech equipment, its headquarters is a decrepit, onestory block building filled with radios, computer terminals and scanners. It sits in the middle of what looks like a fenced, aging trailer court. The eight trailers are offices for pilots and supervisors. Fillmore, a former Marine recon lieutenant trained to hunt people on the ground, now hunts them in the air. He was assigned to the unit last July after serving in a customs unit in Jacksonville and working on a customs 35foot cigarette patrol boat at Port Canaveral. Pilots looking for action He now works down the street from the abandoned Air Force hospital where he was born in 1952 and on a base where his father helped schedule B36 bomber flights. "How else would I ever come back to a Caribbean island, less than a half mile from where I was born?" said Fillmore, a 12year customs vet. "It's just a strange coincidence. I wish my Dad was alive to tell me some stories about this place." The pilots are often junior aviators who come to Puerto Rico for more action and the lure of quicker promotions. Many veteran pilots avoid permanent transfers, citing harsher living conditions, poorer schools and medical facilities than their families are used to on the mainland. Because they are two hours from San Juan in a remote corner of the island, the Mofongos are a closeknit bunch. They drink together, play racquetball together and jog together. The youngest may be 30. Most show a little gray at the temples. One is missing so much hair, he's called "Skull." Pilot Greg Horwath, 49, of Jacksonville and Fillmore are typical members of the group runners and weightlifters. Several also are National Guard pilots who drill with other Mofongos one weekend a month. Others, such as Philipps, have mustaches, collarlength hair parted down the middle and look more like the hunted than the hunters. Sixyear customs pilot Chris Giles, 36, is looking forward to joining the Mofongo Brothers next month, when he is scheduled to transfer from Tampa. "They're getting seizures and the results," said Giles, a former Seminole County deputy sheriff originally from DeLand. "If you want to get into the action, that's where it's at." GRAPHIC: PHOTO: Drug plane. Customs airmen used Forward Looking InfraRed scanners to take picture of bundles of cocaine dropping from smugglers' aircraft for boats to pick up. U.S. CUSTOMS