Border Checks Stepped Up After Drug Tip

Intensified searches of trucks, trains and aircraft carrying cargo from Mexico into the United States began Friday after federal agents were tipped that drug smugglers who stockpiled supplies of narcotics during recent border crackdowns would be trying to move drugs into this country in greater quantities.

The stepped-up inspections will continue indefinitely, said Jerome Hollander, a spokesman for the U.S. Customs Service.

Hollander said campers also will undergo stricter searches but that officials do not expect the searches to tie up traffic at the border crossings. He said vehicles subjected to increased scrutiny will be waved to secondary checkpoints, not stopped in the path of normal border traffic.

“We’ve received reports that large amounts of narcotics have been stockpiled in Mexico as a result of some of the recent efforts by customs and immigration,” Hollander said. “There has also been some increased law-enforcement activity in Mexico during these last few days, and that’s put some additional pressure on drug smugglers to move their wares into the U.S.”

As a result, Hollander said, agents are expecting smugglers to move their drugs in larger shipments on trucks, trains and airplanes.

Friday’s action was the third at the border by federal officials in the past month.

On Feb. 15, customs and immigration agents began inspecting the passenger compartments and trunks of every vehicle entering the United States, causing delays of up to seven hours at the San Ysidro border crossing. That search, meant to turn up clues in the disappearance of U.S. drug agent Enrique S. Camarena, ended 10 days later. Camarena’s body was recovered March 6 in Mexico.

In a separate action March 1, U.S. officials closed nine small border crossings--including one at Tecate--after being tipped that Mexican drug traffickers planned to kidnap an American border officer. The crossings were reopened March 5.

Hollander said commercial vehicles and cargo shippers crossing the border normally must stop, submit to searches and fill out paper work. He said the additional searches begun Friday won’t take much more time.

“The examination will be more intensified than it might have been in the past,” he said. “But it’s my understanding that since they are looking for large loads, there’s not going to be a minute examination.”