Pubdate: Thursday, 01 December 1999
Source: Tampa Tribune (FL)
Copyright: 1999, The Tribune Co.
Contact:  http://www.tampatrib.com/
Forum: http://tampabayonline.net/interact/welcome.htm
Author: Molly Moore of the Washington Post

DRUG SEIZURES SKYROCKETING ALONG U.S.-MEXICAN BORDER

MEXICO CITY - The heavier flow, spurred by higher production in Mexico and
Colombia, is eroding U.S. officials' trust in Mexico.

Cocaine and marijuana seizures inside the Southwestern US border and along
Mexico's Pacific coast have escalated dramatically in the past two years.
That alarms 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 border, where 70 percent
of all illicit drugs enter the country, are up as much as 33 percent during
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, and this year the U.S. Coast Guard made, the largest cocaine
hauls in its history in both the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean.

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 statistics showing rising
marijuana use among American teenagers.

The rising amount of seizures reflects not only greater smuggling activity
but also dramatic increases in production in Colombia and Mexico, according
to U.S. officials. U.S. authorities estimate they capture 10 percent to 15
percent of all drugs smuggled into the country. Although many officials
credit improved coordination among U.S. law enforcement agencies for the
increase in seizures, they say the trend indicates more drugs are arriving.

Mexican authorities dispute some of the U.S. conclusions, but they said
they would not compile Mexican seizure totals until next month. Earlier
this year, Mexico's top antidrug 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 in a
news conference this summer that marijuana and poppy production was up in
Mexico because eradication was becoming increasingly difficult with
production moving into 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
disarray and have made little progress in targeting the country's biggest
cartel leaders, U.S. agencies said.

"The drug groups are flexible and innovative and are using ever more
sophisticated and well-organized counter-surveillance and
counterintelligence," according to a new U.S. government intelligence
assessment. "They are constantly ... identifying and exploiting law
enforcement predictability, patterns, weaknesses, vulnerabilities and
routines."

While politicians at the highest levels in both countries continue to say
that cooperation has improved, Richard Fiano, chief of operations for the
U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, 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. A special fugitive
apprehension team created by Mexico's anti-narcotics agency to track down
the leaders of the Tijuana-based Arellano-Felix cartel, one of Mexico's two
largest drug cartels, "has not participated in any significant enforcement
activity," Fiano said.

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 crimes. 
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