Mexico Still Lax on Drugs, U.S. Official Says

The Reagan Administration’s chief customs officer charged Thursday that Mexico’s government is still failing to keep a swelling tide of drugs from crossing the U.S.-Mexican border, largely because of official corruption.

“The stuff is probably pouring across at a greater rate than it was a year ago,” Customs Commissioner William von Raab complained. “If we spot (airborne smugglers), then they just fly around and go back and land in Mexico.”

Von Raab laid blame for the impasse on the difficult topography of the U.S.-Mexican border and on persistent corruption among lower-level Mexican officials.

“We have a lot of problems on the border with (Mexican) customs officers,” he said at a breakfast interview session with Times reporters and editors. “We have problems with their people there. And when you bring it to their attention . . . they act concerned--but nothing happens.”

The complaints were reminiscent of his blunt language last May, when he told a Senate committee that Mexico’s law enforcement system was crippled by “ingrained corruption . . . all the way up and down the ladder.”

Those comments touched off an uproar in Mexico. Atty. Gen. Edwin Meese III disavowed Von Raab’s testimony in an attempt to smooth relations and since then has met repeatedly with Mexican officials “to try to improve the environment . . . as far as law enforcement is concerned.”

But Von Raab added: “I haven’t changed any of my opinions on Mexico. . . . I haven’t seen any change on the border.”

Other U.S. officials said they largely share Von Raab’s view. State Department and Justice Department officials said that while Mexico has stepped up efforts to prosecute drug producers and traffickers, there has been no visible attempt to stop smugglers.

“We’ve heard of shipments coming to the border under the protection of Mexican police,” a drug enforcement official said.

Von Raab said that increased effort and spending by the Customs Service have put up new obstacles to drug smugglers. “We’re seizing a lot more of it now, and we’re making a lot more arrests,” he said.

But, he said, Mexico has not cooperated in other efforts, such as allowing U.S. authorities to cross the border in “hot pursuit” of drug smugglers.

As a result, he complained, drug smugglers can still operate in northern Mexico with impunity and with the complicity of low-level officials.

“We had a Mexican customs officer that came across (the border), our guys opened up the trunk of his car and they found a bunch of marijuana in it,” he said. “They went to arrest him, and they grabbed him--and all they got was his coat. He ran back across the border. And the only thing the Mexican officials were interested in was getting back his coat. We still have the coat. We offered to trade the coat for the guy.”