Smuggling Drugs into the United States

1056 Words3 Pages

Smuggling Drugs into the United States On July 30, Federal agents charged twelve Delta Air Lines employees of smuggling drugs into the United States. Nine Delta Airlines workers were arrested and three others are sought as suspects in a scheme that brought 10 tons of Colombian cocaine into the U.S. via Delta flights from Puerto Rico. Over a three to four year period, employees stashed cocaine in suitcases and packed the drug into cargo containers which were then transported primarily to New York from San Juan's Munóz Marin International Airport, agents said (Christopher Wren, "Nine at Delta Are Seized in Smuggling of Cocaine," New York Times, July 31, 1997, p. A23; "Delta workers indicted on cocaine smuggling charges," USA Today, July 31, 1997, p. 3A; "Airline Workers Held in Drug Ring," Washington Post, July 31, 1997, p. A16). In a separate investigation, agents in Miami arrested six American Airlines employees on July 31 who allegedly imported heroin and cocaine from Bogota, Colombia. The drugs were stashed behind walls in the airplane galleys. Since November the employees allegedly smuggled 1,100 pounds of cocaine and up to 22 pounds of heroin. The drugs were placed on the plane in Bogota, but not unloaded until after the plane had landed in Miami and then made one domestic round trip flight to avoid surveillance at Miami International. The scheme required "not only a mechanic's or a cargo handler's knowledge but an operations man's knowledge of where a flight is coming from, whether it's going to go and where it's going to go if it is," said Art Kosatka, security specialist for Counter Technology Inc. (Richard Willing, "Airline drug smugglers getting ever more sophisticated," USA Today, August 1, 199... ... middle of paper ... ...s, the bill undermines the fundamental U.S. foreign policy goals of supporting democracy and human rights" (WOLA, "`Western Hemisphere Drug Elimination Act' Would Further Militarize Andean Region Drug War," Legislative Alert, September 14, 1998). According to WOLA, U.S. funding for anti-drug efforts in Latin America has increased more than 150% over the last ten years. Yet, by U.S. State Department estimates, coca cultivation is 11.7% higher, and opium production has doubled. Over the last decade, total drug production in Colombia has risen an estimated 260%. Coca production in Colombia has more than tripled, making Colombia the world's leading coca producer. Twenty years ago almost no coca was grown in Colombia. Only four years ago, no heroin was produced in Colombia; it now ranks third in the world in poppy cultivation and fourth in heroin production.

Open Document