Pubdate: Tue, 30 Nov 1999
Source: Seattle Times (WA)
Copyright: 1999 The Seattle Times Company
Contact:  http://www.seattletimes.com/
Author:  Molly Moore, The Washington Post

ALARMING RISE IN DRUG SEIZURES ALONG U.S-MEXICAN BORDER

MEXICO CITY - Cocaine and marijuana seizures inside the southwestern
U.S. border and along Mexico's Pacific coast have escalated
dramatically in the past two years, alarming U.S. law-enforcement
authorities who say Mexican traffickers are sending greater quantities
and larger loads of drugs into the United States.

Seizures of marijuana by U.S. agencies along the southwestern U.S.
border, where 70 percent of all illicit drugs enter the country, are
up as much as 33 percent over last year, according to U.S.
drug-interdiction agencies. Between 1991 and 1998, seizures have
jumped from 113 tons to 720 tons. At the same time, cocaine loads off
Mexico's Pacific coast appear to have increased dramatically.

The heavier flow of drugs has exacerbated ongoing problems of trust
and cooperation between American and Mexican authorities and is
particularly troubling to U.S. law enforcement in light of new
statistics showing rising marijuana use among American teenagers.

The rising amount of seizures reflects not only greater smuggling
activity but also dramatic increases in drug production in Colombia
and Mexico, according to U.S. officials and reports.

U.S. authorities estimate they capture 10 to 15 percent of all drugs
smuggled into the country.

The year's mounting tally of drug seizures, along with new U.S.
calculations of significantly increased cocaine production in Colombia
and expanding opium poppy and marijuana production in Mexico, are
sending "shock waves through the system," said a senior U.S. official
involved in monitoring drug trafficking.

Earlier this year, Mexico's top anti-drug official, Mariano Herran
Salvatti, said he believed that cocaine shipments into Mexico had
dropped 50 percent this year, but he did not provide detailed
supporting data.

Herran said this summer that marijuana and poppy yields were up in
Mexico because eradication was becoming increasingly difficult, noting
that "the illicit plantations are turning ever more away from
populated areas and into federal lands in the mountains."

Mexican drug cartels appear to be reorganizing their operations to
improve the transport of South American cocaine and Mexican marijuana
and heroin to the United States at a time when many Mexican
anti-narcotics units are in serious disarray and have made little
progress in targeting the country's biggest cartel leaders, according
to U.S. law-enforcement agencies.

While politicians at the highest levels of both countries capitals continue
to say that cooperation has improved, Richard Fiano, chief of operations for
the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), told a congressional
subcommittee in September: "Until such time that adequate anti-corruption
assurances and safeguards can be implemented, DEA will exercise extreme
caution in sharing sensitive information with our Mexican counterparts."

Fiano described the "investigative achievements" of Mexico's most
elite anti-drug units against major cartels as "minimal."

Even Mexican political leaders this year became so frustrated with
failed attempts to clean up the country's corrupt law-enforcement
agencies that they created a new national police force for fighting
drug trafficking and other crime. Top political leaders also pledged a
multimillion dollar increase in support to the military and existing
civilian agencies for anti-narcotics efforts.

The surge in Mexican marijuana loads comes in the face of new U.S.
government statistics showing that marijuana use among American youth
between the ages of 12 and 17 has doubled in the plast six years. In
the first nine months of 1999, marijuana seizures nationwide were up
29 percent, from 513 tons during the same period last year to 663 tons
this year.

Although those figures include domestically produced marijuana, the
seizure figures for Mexican marijuana are up by even more staggering
amounts. Borderwide seizures are up about 33 percent.
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