Drug Seizures Sad Sign of Return to Normality

By one measure, at least, life on the border is back to normal: The drugs are flowing again.

Narcotics seizures by U.S. authorities along California’s border with Mexico plummeted during the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, but have bounced back to levels of a year earlier and even gone much higher.

Officials cite several factors, including new top-to-bottom searches of cars and trucks entering official crossings and the impatience of smugglers who had delayed shipments of contraband and became overstocked.

U.S. Customs officials at the six ports of entry in California report sharp rises in the quantities of marijuana, cocaine and heroin seized in recent weeks. In spite of the two-week lull after Sept. 11, seizures at the border hit a record high during the 12 months ending Sept. 30, the close of the federal fiscal year. The recent pace is even faster.

“We’re getting a lot of seizures--a lot,” said Vince Bond, spokesman for the Customs Service in San Diego. “The new fiscal year is off to a very busy start.”

Customs seized 36,000 pounds of marijuana along the border in October, up from 23,000 pounds in September. Inspectors confiscated 32,000 pounds during the first 28 days of November, about 5,000 pounds more than a year earlier. The amount of cocaine seized more than doubled to 594 pounds in October from 264 pounds in September. Cocaine seizures jumped further in November, to more than 1,000 pounds--far higher than a year earlier, when inspectors found just 193 pounds.

Heroin seizures also are up.

The same dip and resurgence in seizures has occurred at ports of entry across the 2,000-mile international border. And U.S. Border Patrol agents who watch the countryside between the ports say they, too, have confiscated more drugs in recent weeks.

“The drug seizures have been skyrocketing,” said Raleigh Leonard, a Border Patrol spokesman in San Diego. “It’s not a fluke.”

A Customs spokesman in Washington, D.C., noted that searches are more thorough now, so it’s logical “that we’ll be able to catch more bad guys and contraband.”

Drug Smugglers Withheld Shipments

But any measurement of unlawful activity at the border, such as drug smuggling and illegal crossings, is open to wide interpretation, and the sudden fall and rise in drug seizures is no exception. The jump could mean inspectors are doing a better job of finding the hidden drugs. It could mean traffickers are shipping more or altering their routes. Or all of the above.

“Due to the illicit nature of the enterprise, a lot of this is assumption on our part,” said Jay Ahern, who directs Customs field operations along California’s southern border.

U.S. officials believe that smugglers, unnerved by disruption at the border after the attacks, withheld shipments. At the time, there were conflicting reports about whether the border would stay open--it did, except for brief closures due to bomb scares--and extensive news coverage about the rigorous scrutiny facing vehicles and pedestrians entering the United States. Those were not ideal conditions for sending loads of drugs across the border.

Officials say smugglers resumed shipments when more stable conditions returned. Though security remained just as tight, Mexican traffickers faced stockpiles of drugs that were getting stale and, with little fresh cash for bribing officials and other operations, a growing risk of detection and arrest in Mexico, analysts say.

“If they’re not making money, it presents myriad problems for them,” said Don Thornhill, spokesman for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in San Diego.

U.S. authorities say the stepped-up searches for bombs and terrorists have aided the war on drugs--at least at the border. “The anti-terrorism initiative is our No. 1 priority. The methods used to detect weapons of mass destruction are the same as for narcotics,” Bond said.

Nationwide, however, it remains to be seen how anti-drug efforts are affected as surveillance aircraft move to counter-terrorism patrols and investigators shift from tracking drug money to terrorist networks.

The recent seizures follow 12 months in which Customs seized a record 244 tons of narcotics, worth $783 million, at the border in California. That figure, which includes interdictions by air and sea, is 19% higher than in the previous year.

Officials said the increased seizures probably resulted from adding 30 to 40 inspectors and new X-ray machines that can find stashes hidden aboard trucks.