Cocaine Continues to Pour Through U.S.-Mexican Border

U.S. BORDER February 1993

Despite massive expansions of U.S. Customs operations at the Mexican border and expenditures of hundreds of millions of dollars in drug-related military drug interdiction costs, cocaine continues to pour through the U.S.-Mexican border, according to evidence marshalled for a Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) "Frontline" program titled "What Happened to the Drug War?" (Joe Rosenbloom, "U.S. Losing Drug War on the Border," Dallas Morning News, 1/31/93).

Among the statistics cited by coproducer and reporter for the Frontline program Joe Rosenbloom:

• Interdiction programs nationwide since 1988 have consumed $7 billion.
  
  
• 70 percent of U.S. cocaine enters along the 2,000-mile Mexican border.
  
  
• Seizures rose by less than supply increased; the 147 tons seized nationally in 1992, a 36 percent increase, compared to an estimated 440 tons that got through undetected.
  
  
• Another 300 Customs inspectors will be added along the 28 border posts in 1993, augmenting the current 1,700 agents and dog-handlers at considerable cost to taxpayers.
  
  
• An Air Force network of nine radar balloons to spot airborne smugglers has been plagued by weather damage and other problems, remaining grounded 60 percent of the time in 1992.
  
  
• A fleet of 18 high-speed Blackhawk Customs helicopters kept on constant alert are often unable to reach drop points in time to catch smugglers.
  
  
• Defense Department anti-drug operations costing hundreds of millions of dollars employing sophisticated surveillance airplanes and Navy ships have resulted in few seizures; Pentagon documents show that in 1990 and 1991 military efforts resulted in 33 cocaine seizures totaling about 8,000 pounds -- 1,700 pounds less than the New York branch of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) seized during the same period.
  
  
• Radar malfunctions and engine breakdowns have resulted in the near mothballing of a Customs flotilla on 46 speedboats designed to monitor waterways.
  
  
• Rene Magallanes, a bookkeeper for smugglers, testified that U.S. Customs agents accepted bribes to allow huge loads of cocaine to pass the border; chief DEA agent in El Paso, Raul Morales, concurred that "it was some sort of police official, but to say it was one agency or another, I couldn't say."
  
  
• In an 18-month period, smugglers operating from Juarez, Mexico drove 900 carloads of cocaine totaling 250 tons across the U.S. border undetected -- about a third of the total estimated cocaine supply to the U.S. during that period; The details became known when the smuggling scheme was unmasked in 1989, and pointed to corruption by U.S. police officials.