Law Enforcement Veteran to Head Customs Service

Raymond W. Kelly, a straight-talking ex-Marine and former New York police commissioner, is stepping down as the Treasury Department’s undersecretary for enforcement to assume direct control of one of six agencies under his command: the troubled U.S. Customs Service.

Explaining why he accepted the lower-ranking post, Kelly said: “I just wanted to get back into an operational mode, and Customs is a great agency with an important mission.”

He acknowledged that Customs has experienced some serious problems, some of which Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) spotlighted in a speech on the Senate floor Thursday.

Feinstein said she was surprised by an article in The Times earlier this week reporting that the amount of cocaine seized at commercial ports of entry along the U.S.-Mexico border plummeted 84% in 1997, compared with the year before. This has forced Customs officials, who oversee the ports, to develop a new drug-fighting strategy and left them concerned about a backlash in Congress.

And last fall, Customs officials acknowledged in testimony to a congressional committee that a wide disparity existed between resources devoted to the East and West coasts, leaving the Los Angeles area vulnerable to international crime.

Data provided the committee by Customs showed the agency has placed about twice as many special agents in its New York and Miami offices as it has in Los Angeles, where 167 people are assigned to the investigative unit. Even though it covers the largest metropolitan area of the agency’s field offices, the Los Angeles unit ranks seventh in size.

Kelly said Thursday: “We’re on the way to addressing some of [the problems], and I’m excited about joining the agency.”

Kelly’s appointment is widely seen as a clear signal that the administration aims to toughen Customs’ drug-enforcement efforts.

Although the White House has not officially announced Kelly’s appointment, other sources confirmed it after Feinstein, in her Senate speech, mentioned that she had urged the appointment of a law enforcement veteran as the new Customs commissioner and that President Clinton planned to name Kelly.

Kelly will replace Samuel H. Banks, who has been acting commissioner since October, when George Weise resigned.

Kelly’s boss as undersecretary will be James E. Johnson, who has been serving under him as assistant secretary for enforcement.

A combat veteran of the Vietnam War, Kelly rose through the ranks of the New York City Police Department, serving in every rank and 25 commands before becoming commissioner in October 1992. Recognized as New York state’s law enforcement official of the year in 1993, he helped lead the successful investigation of that year’s bombing at the World Trade Center. He retired as commissioner in January 1994.

Feinstein said she was “heartened” by Kelly’s appointment, calling him “a straight shooter” with an exemplary background. She expressed hope he would concentrate the Customs Service’s efforts on its mission to intercept drugs being smuggled into the United States.

With an annual budget of about $2.1 billion, the Customs Service, in addition to its core mission of inspecting cargo and interdicting illegal drugs, shares responsibility for combating international money-laundering and arms-smuggling.

Feinstein told the Senate the Southwest border “is still, without question, ground zero in U.S. drug-interdiction efforts, with more than 70% of the cocaine and other narcotics entering this country across the 2,000-mile stretch of border between our county and Mexico.”