Source: MSNBC/KBCD (Lubbock, TX)
Contact:  http://www.msnbc.com/local/KCBD/
Pubdate: 14 Jul 1998
Author: Dorian Cundick

BORDER BATTLES OF THE DRUG WAR

That brings us to our in depth report -- the daily battles of the drug war
- -- battles that are fought on the streets of Lubbock everyday. The Lubbock
Sheriff's Office has won two rounds in the last week. Last Thursday...it
was 80 pounds of marijuana.

Then Wednesday night...a K-9 officer working the Idalou Highway stopped a
speeding car with Chihuahua, Mexico plates. After the dog alerted to the
possibility of drugs -- officers found nearly 14 thousand dollars. The
driver...28-year-old Ricardo Rios..is a Mexican citizen whom deputies
believe had completed a delivery in Oklahoma City and was on his way back
to the border. The drugs that find their way to Lubbock and beyond,
generally flow from Mexico. In depth we take you to El Paso -- in the war
on drugs -- it's a major battleground.

How do drugs get to Lubbock? How about this -- stuffed in hidden
compartments like these where the cash was found last night -- deputies say
the dog found the compartments because they started out full of drugs. But
here's the story -- the Mexico plates -- the shipment passed through El
Paso -- a city whose ports of entry serve as a daily...desperate filter to
keep the drugs out of the country.

Rush hour at the border lasts all day every day. The lifeblood of the
border -- a concoction of humanity and commerce -- courses across the
narrow geographical gap between Juarez and El Paso via three main bridges
- -- this is the Cordova Bridge -- it's the busiest bridge because there's no
toll. Everyday 25 thousand cars come across here...carrying every
imaginable kind of cargo. Roger Meier, with U.S. Customs, says, "We're
taking the offensive here." And if there are drugs in the mix -- it's the
job of customs to find them. Meier says, "We'll sweep 30-40-50 cars at a
time -- It's random, it's unpredictable, it catches people off balance..."

So far this year... El Paso Customs has seized more than 150 thousand
pounds of cocaine, heroin, and marijuana on its way into the United States.
The hiding places? Everywhere from compartments that fasten over tire rims
to false trunks to holes in the gas tank. And customs -- armed with density
detectors and spiked stop sticks says, "We've actually found vehicles
abandoned, loaded with dope flowing trail of pieces of rubber from their
tires."

And the element of surprise -- rearranging barricades several times a day
and running random inspections -- towing trucks through monster x-ray
machines -- constantly changing to foil "spotters" -- scouts that hang out
on the bridges and look for patterns.

Meet Rex -- one of the drug-war's heroes -- proof that where the human eye
fails... the nose knows. Faster than five customs agents... screening large
vehicles in a single sniff...

John Flores, K-9 Officer, says, "Regardless of where at, most of time the
dog's gonna find it." Motivated by the prospect of a game of tug-of-war...
The K-9's do in minutes what several officers can do in a quarter of an
hour. Random runs through the traffic -- unpredictable pull-overs -- lots
of asking and watching -- and a lot of luck -- and the lines aren't getting
smaller.

El Paso is known worldwide as a model for drug-fighting techniques --
customs says it regularly has international visitors who come to observe
how the U.S. mans its borders. And when it comes to the real celebrity
appeal at the borders that goes hands-down to the K-9's -- they even have
their own trading cards with all you could ever want to know about their
anti-drug exploits. 

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Checked-by: Mike Gogulski