Source: San Fransisco A FLOOD OF DRUGS Slovakian City Turned Into Drug Warehouse Russian Mafia uses unlikely couriers for shipments west By Eric Geiger Chronicle Foreign Service Last year, police in Austria seized 81 Kilograms of heroin that had been smuggled into the country (up from 47 kilograms in 1995) and a record 72 kilograms of cocaine. An additional 236 kilograms of hard drugs were confiscated by border guards. * In Vienna alone, police estimate that 1.5 tons of heroin (with a street value of $120 million) are being consumed annually. * Officials estimate that 60,000 Austrians are regular cocaine users. * The number of deaths from drug overdoses in this nation of 8 million was put at 241 last year. Bratislava, Slovakia. Twice a week, the conservatively dressed Slovakian mother, accompanied by her two small children, boarded a bus for the 90 minute ride to Vienna. And for quite a while she apparently had no trouble blending in with the crowd of foreign tourists and returning shoppers usually jamming the coach. Austrian drug investigators eventually discovered the reason for the frequent family excursions a bag containing a pound of heroin, worth about $100,000 on Western European streets, that was hidden amid baby food and lipstick in the woman's purse. The woman admitted making similar smuggling trips in the past. But she kept mum on the identities of her bosses in Bratislava and the recipients of the heroin shipments in Vienna. She got herself tangled up in a deadly, sinister game," said an investigator. ~She knows that if she talks, her life won't be worth a penny." The young mother's arrest has focused attention on what investigators have said is a largely foolproof scheme used by international drug lords to smuggle narcotics originating from Central Asia, Turkey and South America to Western Europethe called "Ameisen," or ants, a virtual army of small time drug couriers who travel with their contraband by bus, train or private car. A few get caught, but most do not. Austrian antidrug agents believe that the Russian mafia and other Eastern European crime groups who are believed to control most of the illegal drug trade in Europe have set up large narcotics depots in the former Eastern bloc city on the Danube a few miles from the European Communlty's southern boundary. Investigators are convinced that Bratislava has become a cross roads of both the socalled Balkan drug route that ferries heroin westbound by truck from Turkey, and the Afghan route, on which "brown heroin" is brought to the West via Russia from Central Asia. A Vienna police official said the drug lords have adapted to the rigorous border controls set up by Austria since it joined the EU in 1995 by switching from trucks to harmless looking individuals smuggle drugs on the last leg of the route." Investigators say the modestly compensated "ants" often recruited from the ranks of petty crooks and excons in Slovakia, and nearby Hungary, generally are deemed to be expendable, as are the relatively small amounts of drugs they carry. Their absolute silence is guaranteed by threats of severe reprisals, including death. 0nce in Vienna, part of the drug shipments are turned over to local dealers serving the Austrian market. But the bulk reportedly is smuggled by truck and private car to Germany, andother EU countries, which have largely abolished customs controls at their borders. Austrians have long regarded Bratislava, the capitol of newly Independent slovakia, primarily as a shopping mecca thatthanks to favorable currency exchange rates offered great food and wine bargains. Its new role as a hub of international narcotics smuggling was spotlighted recently by continent wide publicity surrounding an unprecedented police antidrug operation in Vienna that confirmed Bratisalava as the point of origin. The crackdown featured housetohouse searches, extensive wiretapping and raids on ritzy discos and clubs catering to celebrities and the upper crust. More than 70 people were arrested for drug dealing, and another 50 were charged with* drug abuseincluding prominent attorneys, entertainers, TV stars and journalists. Among those caught up in the police dragnet was worldclass ski jumper Andreas Geldberger, 34, who admitted on state television to sniffing cocaine in one of Vienna's most popular discos. Another was popular pop singer Tony Wegas, 31, who allegedly arranged the smuggling of heroin by Austrian "ants" from Bratislava to Vienna both to service his own addiction and to distribute it to others. Currently awaiting trial, Wegas is facing a maximum sentence of 15 years. "At society events they no longer merely offer caviar and champagne but increasingly also cocaine," said Austria's top police official, Michael Sika, even though it is also becoming available In public housing projects." ~Authorities are even more disturbed by the rising narcotourism that brings hundreds of addicts across the Slovakian border every weekend. Addicts simply travel to Bratislava, get themselves a heroin shot there and subsequently buy an additional small amount to smuggle it back home across the border to sell," said Walter Fuchs top drug investigator of Lower Austria police. ~That way they finance their own addiction." The system is made possible by the huge differences in the street price of drugs in Bratislava and in West European cities. A gram of heroin that sells for roughly $29 in Bratislava costs about $67 in Vienna. Cocaine in the Slovakian city is available for $66 but costs more than $100 in Vienna. The Bratislava area reportedly also has become a production center for such synthetic drugs as Ecstasy, LSD and methamphetamines. The crime groups have re portedly enlisted highly paid Western chemists to supply most of the designer drugs increasingly found in Western European schools, discos and at techno dance parties. Despite scoring some successes, Austrian antidrug officials admit they are fighting an uphill battle. "We know all about the existence of the narcotics depots set up by the drugsmugglng kingpins in Bratislava," said Karl Lesjak , a top interior Ministry official. "But our colleagues In Slovakia are unable to locate their." Analysts, academics and Journalists say the apparent untraceabilty of the depots and the easy availability of narcotics in this city of 500,000 may be partly be the result of mafia payoffs to police officers . a charge Slovakian officials brand as "unfair defamation.~ But it's no secret among residents that drug dealers are carrying out their activities without much hindrance at the main station and at discos and pool halls. We all know what theyare doing, and we hate it," a middle aged Slovakian said angrily as he watched several young men, some of them carrying mobile phones huddled together in a corner of the station "But let's be honest. If there wasn't such big demand from Austrians and other Western Europeans, they wouldn't be in business in the first place."