DEA Reporting And Seizure Activity Indicates That The EPAC Has Been The Preferred Smuggling Route Since Late 1998.

DEA, Jan 07, 2002

Trafficking organizations are believed to prefer the EPAC because of the vastness of the area, which has no natural chokepoints, as does the Caribbean.

Prior to the shift to the EPAC route in late 1998, drug traffickers used the Yucatan Peninsula corridor as the primary route to smuggle cocaine from South America into Mexico.

Traffickers use tractor-trailers, passenger vehicles, and railcars to transport cocaine via overland routes through Mexico. In addition, the Pan-American Highway serves as a smuggling route for trucks and passenger vehicles transporting cocaine from Central America to Mexico.

Aggressive interdiction efforts resulted in record seizures during 1998 and 1999. Due to these interdiction efforts, traffickers began moving smaller loads along the Pan-American Highway to minimize losses.

Larger quantities are still transported overland, as evidenced by the May 2001, 1.1-metric-ton load of cocaine that was seized at the Peñas Blancas, Nicaragua, border crossing. This shipment was hidden inside the false walls of a northbound commercial tractor-trailer transporting 19,000 pounds of nylon string.

Vehicles are either outfitted with hidden compartments to conceal cocaine, or other illicit drugs are intermingled with legitimate cargo transported by trucks and railcars.

Drug interdiction checkpoints are positioned at border crossings and along major highways to intercept vehicles smuggling drugs, and regularly result in seizures ranging from multihundred-kilogram to metric-ton quantities of cocaine.

Cocaine is frequently transported by vehicle through Mexico to northern border locations for further transshipment into the United States.

During traffic stops and at checkpoints within close proximity to the border, multihundred-kilogram quantities of cocaine are periodically seized from commercial trucks modified with hidden compartments and/or concealed within legitimate cover loads.

Smaller amounts of cocaine concealed in compartments of privately owned vehicles have also been seized. The daily high volume of truck and passenger car traffic crossing the Mexican–U.S. Southwest border facilitates the smuggling of cocaine by vehicles to U.S. border cities.

Daily pedestrian traffic crossing the border also accounts for small quantities of cocaine entering the United States.

There have been occasional reports of cocaine smuggling via railway from Mexico to the United States, but the extent to which railways are used to transport drugs is unknown.

There were two cocaine seizures from railcars in April and May 2000 in Empalme, Sonora. In both seizure incidents, the train was en route to Mexicali, Baja California. Recent intelligence reporting indicates that relatively small amounts of cocaine are infrequently transported via railway.

By comparison, a few multiton seizures of marijuana have been seized aboard trains transiting Mexico during 2001.

Small aircraft were the primary conveyances used to transport cocaine from Colombia to and within Mexico in the 1980s and early 1990s, and continue to be a viable mode of moving drugs to clandestine landing strips in Mexico. DEA continues to receive periodic reports concerning cocaine shipments smuggled by air.

However, the majority of documented cocaine shipments transported via aircraft appears to occur within Mexico. These flights, destined for clandestine landing strips near the U.S.–Mexican border, originate in Southern Mexico.

In December 2001, a small aircraft transporting cocaine landed at a clandestine airstrip in Mexicali. Upon landing, the cocaine was offloaded to a pickup truck, which was later stopped by Mexican authorities, resulting in the seizure of 553 kilograms of cocaine.

In addition, there continue to be infrequent reports of small aircraft arriving from Central and South America. For example, in October 2001 a small aircraft with false tail numbers was discovered in the State of Campeche, where it had crash-landed on a partially developed road.

Evidence found at the crash site indicated that the aircraft departed from Colombia. Sporadic airdrops off the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula also are reported.

In addition, passengers aboard commercial airline flights body carry cocaine or smuggle small amounts of the drug concealed in luggage. In addition, cocaine is sometimes smuggled aboard commercial aircraft and transported as cargo.

The price of a kilogram of cocaine in Mexico varies according to quality, geographic location, distributor, and trafficker. DEA reporting indicates that 1 kilogram of cocaine sells for between US$6,000 and US$20,000 in Mexico.

During 2001, approximately 20 metric tons of cocaine were seized at or near the U.S.–Mexican Southwest border area. This is slightly less than the amount of cocaine seized in 2000. This 20-metric-ton seizure represents over 50 percent of the total cocaine seized within the U.S. arrival zone.

Personal vehicles crossing at the Southwest border ports of entry (POEs) remained the primary method of conveyance used to transport cocaine shipments en route to the United States.