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$500-Million U.S. Fund Did Little to Halt Drug Traffic, Paper Says

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From Associated Press

The skies have been all too friendly to airborne drug smugglers, despite about $500 million spent last year by federal agencies trying to stop them, a Houston newspaper reported Sunday.

The program did not result in a single arrest or drug seizure along the nation’s southwestern border, the Houston Chronicle said.

The Customs Service and the Defense Department operate a $2-billion radar and surveillance system designed to detect and apprehend air smugglers, mostly along the U.S.-Mexico border.

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A five-month Chronicle study of federal drug cases filed along the border during 1991 found that the Customs interdiction program played a negligible role in capturing air smugglers. The cases were filed in five federal court districts located at 20 federal courthouses from Brownsville, Tex., to San Diego.

The newspaper studied every case involving more than 5 kilograms or 11 pounds of cocaine, or 200 kilograms or 440 pounds of marijuana.

Not one of the almost 2,500 cases studied was a direct result of the Customs air interdiction program or the military’s radar-equipped blimps, the Chronicle reported.

But John E. Hensley, assistant Customs commissioner for enforcement, said he was not troubled by the results of the study.

Hensley said the program has helped seal off the border by deterring would-be traffickers and forcing drug organizations to rely more on riskier, more costly ground transportation.

“I believe it has more than achieved what we hoped,” Hensley said.

The Air Force operates four radar blimps that provide the primary coverage for the air interdiction system. Two additional blimps assigned to the region are out of operation, the newspaper said.

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Customs has 130 aircraft and 960 full-time employees scattered across the southern United States to track and pursue suspect airplanes.

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