#1110
Original Air Date: February 2, 1993
Written and Produced by Jim Gilmore and Joe Rosenbloom III
ANNOUNCER:
Tonight on FRONTLINE, the war on drugs.
Sen. JOE BIDEN (D-DE):
We're losing the war on drugs. More people are consuming drugs. More
violent crime associated with it. More drugs coming across our border.
ANNOUNCER:
FRONTLINE investigates the government's multibillion-dollar efforts to
close the borders.
Sen. DENNIS DeCONCINI (D-AZ):
That radar system detects anything that is moving, all the way from
Florida to San Diego.
CAROL HALLETT, Former Customs Commissioner:
For all intents and purposes, the air war has been won along the southern
border.
JOE ROSENBLOOM, FRONTLINE:
Do you think it means that there's virtually no cocaine coming through
here?
TIM FULTON:
I don't think it means that at all.
ANNOUNCER:
Tonight on FRONTLINE, "What Happened to the Drug War?"
NARRATOR:
The Big Bend area of Texas is carved out by the Rio Grande. The river
forms the boundary for about half of the 2,000 largely desolate miles of
the U.S.-Mexico border. The Big Bend is known for its harsh beauty and for
its rampant drug smuggling.
GREG MISH:
You might want to hold on. This is going to be a little rough.
NARRATOR:
The Border Patrol is the federal agency that guards the vast open spaces
between legal ports of entry. Agent Greg Mish has just received a radio
call about a border intrusion in process.
Agent MISH:
Well, that's a common occurrence. We get little kids that will play cat
and mouse with us all day long.
NARRATOR:
This time it was a false alarm.
Agent MISH:
They really don't mean to make an entry. They just come up here and play
with us, say, oh, whatever, and see us coming and just run back and forth
all day.
RADIO:
[unintelligible]
Agent MISH:
That last 801 series was an intrusion, but turned back to Mexico.
RADIO:
Ten-four.
NARRATOR:
Agent Mish has over 85 miles of border to patrol, but he is only one
soldier in America's war on drugs. The federal government has mobilized
thousands of people from 18 different agencies, including federal troops,
to stop drug smuggling along America's southwest border.
Marines patrol the New Mexican border in humvees
and use night scopes to hunt smugglers. Customs and local law enforcement
agents chase smugglers in the Gulf of Mexico in special speedboats. At
border stations Customs is scrutinizing every car and truck for drugs and
at special control centers Customs technicians study radar screens,
looking for suspicious aircraft.
It all amounts to what appear to be the most
impenetrable antidrug net ever constructed. But the question is, does it
work? Every year hundreds of tons of cocaine, an estimated 70 percent of
the total supply, still cross here. It's become America's
cocaine-smuggling belt.
In an eight-month investigation, FRONTLINE has
looked into America's war on the southwest border. The blitz to interdict
drugs at the border began in the mid-'80s. At the time, it was seen as the
linchpin to the government's overall anti-drug strategy.
Sen. DENNIS DeCONCINI (D-AZ):
The total funding authorized in Title III, which is the interdiction, is
$678 million-at least a beginning.
NARRATOR:
The first dollars were appropriated as part of the Anti Drug Abuse Act of
1986.
Sen. DeCONCINI:
The act authorized the government, our government, to create a frontline
defense, if you want to call it that, on the war on drugs.
NARRATOR:
Dennis DeConcini of Arizona was the leading advocate in the Senate for the
border interdiction provisions of the legislation.
Sen. DeCONCINI:
It also got the Defense Department into it legally, that they could be
involved and would have to be involved in the expense and the use of their
technology.
Rep. GLENN ENGLISH (D-OR):
That's what I find so hopeful and promising about this piece of
legislation. It knits together an entire war on drugs. It is, for the
first time in the history of this nation, an honest-to-goodness war on
drugs.
NARRATOR:
One of the boldest initiatives was a radar surveillance network stretching
from California to Florida, featuring blimps called "aerostats."
The first aerostat was unveiled at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. The aerostat
was designed to float high above the earth, tethered to the ground like a
big kite, using its radar to detect air smugglers. Eventually, nine
aerostats would be commissioned, each costing an average of $18 million.
One of the dignitaries at the ceremony was the man who pushed the program
through Congress, Senator DeConcini.
Sen. DeCONCINI:
The aerostat program, which is a great, big balloon filled with gases that
keep it afloat at 10,000 to 12,000 or more feet above the earth with a
radar system in it, but with no personnel in it-that radar system circles
and reaches out 150 miles and detects anything that is moving. And I don't
know of any other system that could do this.
NARRATOR:
The Pentagon developed the aerostat design more than a quarter of a
century ago. In 1969 a Cuban pilot landed his fully-armed MiG at Homestead
Air Force Base in Florida. The flight was not noticed until the pilot
radioed the control tower, asking in Spanish for permission to defect. The
Defense Department quickly ordered an aerostat to plug the embarrassing
hole in the nation's cold war defenses.
Carol Hallett was head of the Customs Service
under President Bush. She lobbied Congress to support an array of drug war
technology.
CAROL HALLETT, Former Customers Commissioner:
The aerostat balloons have been one of the greatest deterrents that has
come along, in terms of a border net, and it's just part of the overall
strategy of defending our borders, and a very successful strategy when you
realize that the-for all intents and purposes, the air war has been won
along the southern border.
NARRATOR:
To bolster the aerostats, Customs operates a fleet of P3 radar planes
which cost $30 million each. Like the aerostats, they are equipped with
downward-looking radar to search for smugglers' aircraft. Another key
element in Customs' surveillance and pursuit strategy is the $5.5 million
Blackhawk helicopter.
Ms. HALLETT:
Traffickers are the guerrillas and we have to have all of the tools that
can go out and meet them and that's what we're doing with Blackhawks, with
P-3's, with aerostats, with all of our other aircraft and it is working or
we would not be making it more difficult for the traffickers to bring
their goods into this country.
NARRATOR:
Here's how the system works. When radar from either the P-3's or an
aerostat spots a smuggler's airplane, chase planes are scrambled in
pursuit. In actual surveillance footage, Customs can be seen in action.
Outfitted with night scopes and radar, the chase planes intercept the
target plane and attempt to determine if it might be a smuggler. If
indications are positive, a Blackhawk helicopter carrying a crew of armed
agents is also scrambled. The "bust" team then lands behind the
smugglers to make arrests.
1st AGENT:
OK, the guy is going right to the van. He just jumped in and he's hauling
ass!
2nd AGENT:
Close the door.
NARRATOR:
We visited one of the Blackhawk crews stationed in Texas.
ED GEORGE, Blackhawk Pilot:
Our main purpose in the Blackhawk is primarily a bust helicopter. In other
words, we carry the-a crew that is going to make the actual bust on the
ground.
NARRATOR:
This crew is responsible for 90,000 square miles of border area, an area
twice the size of Pennsylvania. But these pilots have seen very little
action.
JOE ROSENBLOOM, FRONTLINE:
How long have you been part of it?
Mr. GEORGE:
Three and a half years now.
Mr. ROSENBLOOM:
And in those three and a half years-
Mr. GEORGE:
Oh, the three and a half years-well-
Mr. ROSENBLOOM:
No-
Mr. GEORGE:
I haven't done an air interdictive case with the Blackhawk, per se. I've
done-I've followed quite a lot of other aircraft and landed after them
and, sure enough, they had violated the border, but they were just
citizens who didn't know the requirements of crossing the border. And I've
probably stopped five or six of those people, probably, in the last year
and a half.
NARRATOR:
This pilot's experience is not uncommon. Customs records show that in 1991
and '92, nationwide, there had been only one Blackhawk cocaine bust as a
result of radar surveillance information. One reason for this could be
that smugglers have been deterred from trying.
JAMES B. JOHNSTON, Blackhawk Crew Chief, San Antonio:
That's our main job, is to stop air smuggling, and we just don't see it
anymore. We don't-we don't think it's happening. It's coming-it's still
coming, but by another means. And if that was our original tasking, to
stop air smuggling, I think we've-we've accomplished it.
NARRATOR:
But is this the case? Other pilots have told FRONTLINE they are convinced
that air smuggling is continuing because of holes in the defenses. Customs
has only 18 Blackhawk helicopters. Their top speed is 160 miles per hour.
Most are stationed far from the border. The San Antonio base, for
instance, is about 150 miles north. That makes it difficult to get where
they have to be fast enough.
FRONTLINE reporter Joe Rosenbloom spoke to a
Customs Blackhawk pilot who agreed to an interview if his identity
remained hidden.
BLACKHAWK PILOT:
[subtitles] If the smuggling aircraft is not identified as a smuggling
aircraft until 30 minutes from where it lands, then the helicopter will
just never get there. Time constraints won't allow it.
FRANK AULT, Former Customs Adviser:
The option as to when he hops the border and where is, of course, the
smuggler's.
NARRATOR:
Frank Ault helped design the air interdiction program as a Customs adviser
in the mid-'80s. Once a believer, he is now a critic.
Mr. AULT:
He comes in, plops down in the desert, drops his load and is gone before
the Blackhawk can get there. When you spread 18 Blackhawk helicopters,
which have 170-knot capability, clear across 3,000 miles of southern
border, you don't have very good coverage.
NARRATOR:
Adding more helicopters might help, but the helicopters are only as good
as the radar network that supports them.
BLACKHAWK PILOT:
[subtitles] The concept of the radar fence is good, but in reality it
hasn't proven effective, which is obvious by the problems with the
aerostats, specifically in Texas, in that they're not up.
NARRATOR:
Aerostats are vulnerable to weather-related damage. The three Texas
aerostats have been plagued with problems. In Marfa, high winds tore an
aerostat into four pieces in January, 1992. In Rio Grande City, strong
winds snapped the tether of another. Repairs cost $1 million. In Eagle
Pass, one broke free and crashed 40 miles away.
Sen. DeCONCINI:
Oh, we've had a lot of problems with the aerostats, a lot of them. Number
one, the problem with the aerostat is they can't fly in inclement weather,
so they're down. They average between 70 and 72 percent time they're up.
Mr. ROSENBLOOM:
What if you were told they operated at 39 percent?
Sen. DeCONCINI:
Well, there may be some particular one-
Mr. ROSENBLOOM:
System-wide.
Sen. DeCONCINI:
-that operates at 39.
Mr. ROSENBLOOM:
System-wide.
Sen. DeCONCINI:
I don't believe that's true.
Mr. ROSENBLOOM:
Well -
Sen. DeCONCINI:
At least, Customs informs me that they're operating at greater than that.
NARRATOR:
FRONTLINE has obtained the official 1992 work logs. What the Senator is
apparently not including in his figures is the down time of the aerostats
because of weather-related accidents. When included, the average flying
time isn't 70 percent, as the Senator claims. It's only 39.9 percent.
Jack Blum was a staff counsel for the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, specializing in drug policy matters.
JACK BLUM:
The aerostats are a tremendous boondoggle. As far as I'm concerned,
they're a total waste of money on all sides and, in fact, almost
laughable.
Mr. ROSENBLOOM:
Why?
Mr. BLUM:
First of all, the aerostats have to come down in a high wind. And if the
smugglers wait long enough, the wind goes up, the aerostats come down and
in they come.
NARRATOR:
Smugglers can also profit from the camouflage of mountainous terrain. The
Baboquivari range south of the Port Huachuca aerostat in Arizona is one
example.
Mr. AULT:
The cold, hard facts of life are that over 60 percent of what that
aerostat can see at Fort Huachuca is masked by rocks. We were very good,
technically, but we haven't invented a radar that can see through rocks.
NARRATOR:
And this 1989 report by Congress's General Accounting Office describes
another problem with the aerostats. The report found that when smugglers
fly under 500 feet, aerostats "have difficulty distinguishing such
aircraft ... from surface clutter," such as cars.
FORMER DRUG SMUGGLER:
We just crossed the Rio Grande. We're in the United States.
Mr. ROSENBLOOM:
Is that it right below us, there?
FORMER DRUG SMUGGLER:
That's it right there.
NARRATOR:
We found someone to explain how to beat the radar net. A smuggler for
years, he is now an informant for law enforcement agencies. He agreed to
talk if we would conceal his identity.
Mr. ROSENBLOOM:
It looked like we were going to land in an airport in Mexico, right?
FORMER DRUG SMUGGLER:
Right. That's what it will look like on radar, coming from the south.
Mr. ROSENBLOOM:
And now we're headed east. And about what is our altitude here?
FORMER DRUG SMUGGLER:
Oh, about 30 feet off the ground.
Mr. ROSENBLOOM:
About 30 feet off the ground. And so if the radar were going to pick us
up, it would be picking us up about now?
FORMER DRUG SMUGGLER:
Well, you don't have to worry about that.
NARRATOR:
As he approaches the U.S. border, he dives low near a Mexican airport. On
radar, he says, he would appear to be landing in Mexico. But he does not
land. He continues toward the border at a very low altitude where, he
claims, the radar cannot detect him. He flies through an area smugglers
call "the gate." His route takes him within the range of an
aerostat in Rio Grande City. The route passes over a factory and power
lines, which can interfere with the radar.
On the day of our flight, the aerostat was down
for repairs. If this had been a drug run, it would have been that much
easier. Once over the border, he will eventually pop up and merge with the
normal traffic of crop dusters and small commuter planes. Landing on a
small rural runway, he will quickly pull his plane into a hangar, then
wait to see if he's been followed.
FORMER DRUG SMUGGLER:
All pilots know that they're suspected of hauling drugs. And the people
watch you pretty close-all agencies.
Mr. ROSENBLOOM:
But you feel like you can-you can beat them.
FORMER DRUG SMUGGLER:
Oh, yes. In the air, in bringing it across the border, I know I can.
Mr. ROSENBLOOM:
Pretty easy to beat them?
FORMER DRUG SMUGGLER:
Real easy.
NARRATOR:
While smugglers can apparently beat the air interdiction system in Texas,
back in Washington many still support it. The reason may be politics.
Mr. AULT:
It's the easy way out. Put some money on it and go away, and walk away
from it, and give the American public the warm, fuzzy feeling that the
drug problem is being addressed very vigorously.
NARRATOR:
The air interdiction program's strongest supporters here have been Senator
DeConcini and a lobbying firm, Parry and Romani. Its offices are in this
townhouse located a few blocks from the Capitol. Until late 1992, Parry
and Romani represented the primary manufacturer of aerostats.
BRIAN ROSS, NBC News:
[February 21, 1989] On this day at the townhouse, a visitor-Senator
DeConcini.
NARRATOR:
In 1989, NBC News correspondent Brian Ross reported on the close
relationship between DeConcini and Parry and Romani. The report suggested
the lobbyists had cashed in on their political connections. The facts are
there. President Romano Romani, seen here with the Senator, once worked on
DeConcini's Senate staff. Robert Mills was also an aide to Senator
DeConcini before he joined Parry and Romani. He had worked with DeConcini
on the original air interdiction legislation. And Ted Mehl-he also worked
on the aerostat legislation as a Congressional aide. He then became Parry
and Romani's chief Congressional lobbyist for the aerostats. In 1991,
Parry and Romani's connections apparently paid off when it successfully
lobbied for the funding of four new aerostats. Parry and Romani's client,
a company called TCOM, also won the lion's share of the contract, worth
more than $100 million.
Jack Blum became familiar with Parry and Romani's
connections to DeConcini while working as a Senate investigator in the
late 1980s.
Mr. BLUM:
What I'm saying is that former staff very effectively sold the program to
their boss. And there's a lot of money here and the contractors who want
that went to this group of former staff and said, "Hey, sell it to
the boss." Now, that has gone on all the time and it has happened
with great frequency.
NARRATOR:
What has also happened is that DeConcini has benefited. These Federal
Election Commission reports from Senator DeConcini's re-election campaign
list the following contributors: Parry and Romani lobbyists; Charles
Craig, a TCOM owner; and numerous PACs of air interdiction manufacturers.
Together they have contributed thousands of dollars since 1989. We asked
DeConcini about the Parry and Romani contributions.
Sen. DeCONCINI:
The fact that they contribute to my campaign, I would more suspect it's
not because they're doing business with Customs, it's because they know
me, because I worked with-they worked for me or they feel I'm an honest
candidate.
NARRATOR:
There is nothing illegal about these practices. In fact, they're quite
common.
Mr. BLUM:
The appropriations process has become a method for hiding favors that can
be given by Senators and created an environment in which you make
decisions that aren't rationally based, but are simply based on who talked
to who and "Do me a favor" and "Get this sort of thing
done."
NARRATOR:
And there is one final chapter in the aerostat story. While Congress was
approving new aerostats, the Pentagon, the agency charged with operating
them, was expressing serious concerns. When we first - asked the Pentagon
about their concerns, we were told their findings were classified. But
this letter from the Pentagon's top drug policy official to Senator
DeConcini states that the Pentagon had "identified several
shortcomings in the operational effectiveness of the aerostat."
Sen. DeCONCINI:
Now, does the military all like it? No. Doesn't mean everybody likes the
program, but they have been in to brief me within the last, I think, five
months, indicating that they feel it's a very cost-effective program. I
think that's what you have to do, go talk to them.
NARRATOR:
We did. We were told that the Pentagon still has concerns and that they
are moving ahead only because Congress mandated the purchase of the new
aerostats. Stephen Duncan was the Pentagon's drug policy chief in the Bush
administration.
STEPHEN DUNCAN:
Now, there are sometimes some things that Congress would have us buy that
we frankly do not think is the most cost-effective way to go. And when
that happens, we candidly tell the Congress we don't think that's the most
cost-effective way to go. If the Congress then enacts legislation and says
that is the way to go, that becomes law, this department salutes smartly
and steps out to implement the law.
Mr. BLUM:
The latest round in the aerostat procurement saga is par for the course.
It's really a private discussion. It becomes a matter an individual
Senator can log-roll through his appropriations subcommittee. It really
isn't reasoned and a matter for public debate. Now, in this case, it's
good money after bad. We shouldn't be putting out more aerostats. The
military's right.
NARRATOR:
Corpus Christi, Texas-one of the state's outlets to the Gulf of Mexico.
Each fall the city sponsors Bayfest, a three-day open-air festival. In
September, 1992, we found a display by Customs here. On a perch
overlooking the festivities was one of their $150,000 go-fast boats. One
hundred thirty of these high-speed boats were acquired by Customs in the
1980s to use in another radar interdiction network, this one based at sea.
But here the government concluded the program was a failure.
This is how the program was supposed to work. To
stop smugglers coming in by sea, Customs acquired large cruising craft
like this 49 foot Hatteras. Equipped with expensive radar systems, they
patrolled the coast in tandem with the go fast boats. Corpus Christi
became a focus of this intense marine program.
The local head of Customs, Tim Fulton.
TIM FULTON:
We use a boat with radar on it as a platform to detect targets that might
be hauling drugs and then we use other boats as interceptors to move out
and take a look at the boats and conduct searches, if necessary.
NARRATOR:
But the system never worked as intended. Lou Smit patrolled on go-fast
boats during the four years he was a Customs agent in Corpus Christi.
LOU SMIT:
We didn't really do a whole lot. I mean, we went out and we-the term that
was used in the office was that we go out and burn holes in the water.
Mr. ROSENBLOOM:
You do what?
Mr. SMIT:
Burn holes in the water, just spend money in gas and drive the boat. And
we didn't really do any boat boardings. We didn't do any type of
enforcement activity, so a lot of the times that we were out there would
be-well, they would be characterized as surveillance mission, where
surveillance would mean you'd be out there fishing.
NARRATOR:
In 1991 the program was scuttled. Commissioner Hallett maintained the
program had outlived its usefulness.
Ms. HALLETT:
Our air and marine program has been changed dramatically in the last three
years because, once again, our success was so great using go-fast boats in
not only seizing drugs but stopping drug traffickers that were using
go-fast boats themselves that that has dried up. It's no longer being
done.
NARRATOR:
But Customs' confidential studies in '87 and '91 uncovered numerous
deficiencies that might have contributed to the program being scrapped.
They found the radar was "not useful in rough seas" and the
fleet was plagued with "excessive vessel repair down time." As a
result, according to the report, "narcotic seizures have steadily
declined."
Customs agents in Corpus Christi say their
attempts to catch drug smugglers at sea have been frustrating.
Mr. ROSENBLOOM:
When was the last time you found cocaine on a small boat?
Mr. FULTON:
I don't recall ever catching cocaine on a small boat.
Mr. ROSENBLOOM:
In the five years you've been here?
Mr. FULTON:
In the five years I've been here.
Mr. ROSENBLOOM:
Is that surprising to you?
Mr. FULTON:
It is surprising to me. It's very surprising. I don't have an explanation
for it other than-I just don't have an explanation why we're not catching
cocaine in boats.
Mr. ROSENBLOOM:
Do you think it means that there's virtually no cocaine coming through
here?
Mr. FULTON:
I don't think that it means that at all.
NARRATOR:
Now Customs rarely uses the Blue Thunder except as a public relations
device.
Ms. HALLETT:
The fact that we no longer need to use the Blue Thunder on a daily basis
and can take it out as a demonstration tool is something that is very
important for young people.
NARRATOR:
Though there are problems with the air and sea interdiction programs, the
ground war presents an even bigger challenge. Here in the desert the
Marines are fighting the drug war. In the summer of 1992, 1,000 reservists
were rotated through west Texas and New Mexico to train and to conduct
operations against drug smugglers. Their commander was Brigadier General
John Pickler.
Brigadier General JOHN PICKLER:
I feel like the law enforcement agencies are doing much to stem the flow
of illegal drugs, and in particular cocaine, into this country, especially
as it flows through this region that we call the southwest border. And I
believe that without the application of D.O.D. resources that we provide
to them, they would be far less effective in that effort.
NARRATOR:
Each night, patrols motor through the desert and set up surveillance
positions, but this highly-trained and well-equipped force had problems
stalking their target.
1st MARINE:
Did you see anything and how far you went out-
2nd MARINE:
Went out about half a mile, about three times in this area. We didn't see
anything. Just a lot of rabbits.
1st MARINE:
A lot of rabbits, huh?
NARRATOR:
Tonight, all that is caught in the night scope are other Marines.
3rd MARINE:
Mostly, we've been running into a lot of people who are just, you know,
kind of out, you know, partying, drinking or whatever. We'd see a couple
people out here, you know, shooting at rabbits. Nothing real big. Nothing
real big.
NARRATOR:
Even if the Marines had spotted smugglers, their orders are merely to
report the sightings to civilian authorities. Legally, they are not
allowed to make arrests. At the end of this two-month $660,000 operation,
the Marines' sightings had led to only four marijuana seizures and none of
cocaine.
If the smugglers were attempting to skirt the
Marines, they could have come in through here, El Paso, Texas-in Spanish,
"the passage." This is where the border is most obviously
hemorrhaging. Authorities daily attempt to stem the flow of illegal
immigrants with little success. For a dollar you can be ferried across the
Rio Grande on an inner tube. When the coast is clear, people run for the
safety of the city's crowded streets. But the big smugglers don't come by
inner tube. They are found among the 35,000 cars and trucks that cross
every day. Customs is under constant pressure to keep commerce moving
while still searching for drugs.
In 1969 the Nixon administration began its war on
drugs with an unprecedented clamp-down at the border. The President
ordered officials to stop and search every car and individual. On the
first day 100,000 cars were searched, but no drugs were found. After 21
days Nixon concluded the costs were too high and shelved Operation
Intercept.
These days inspectors are expected to clear a car
every 30 seconds to keep traffic moving.
BORDER GUARD:
Hi. How're you doing? This your car, ma'am?
DRIVER:
Yes, it is.
BORDER GUARD:
And what was the purpose of your visit to Mexico today?
DRIVER:
[unintelligible]
BORDER GUARD:
I see. You live here in El Paso?
NARRATOR:
But they have a wide array of defenses at their disposal, including the
use of dope-smelling dogs, random searches and electronic surveillance.
But Customs says its moat important assets are its highly-trained agents,
who screen the incoming drivers.
Mr. ROSENBLOOM:
What sort of luck have you had? I mean, have you-have you hit on any drugs
lately at all or-
BORDER GUARD:
Sure. The last load I was involved with was in a van and the man that was
driving the vehicle did demonstrate a lot of nervousness. And it
subsequently led to the seizure of 86 pounds of marijuana in a hidden
compartment, just by his nervousness.
NARRATOR:
Despite these defenses, one organization found a way to drive directly
through the heart of them. They devised one of the biggest
cocaine-smuggling schemes ever. This is the man charged with masterminding
the operation. His name is Rafael Munoz. He worked with a family based in
El Paso, the Tapias. Together Munoz and the Tapias built an organization
so successful that its profits, if legal, would have made it a Fortune 500
company.
Glenn MacTaggart is an assistant U.S. attorney in
San Antonio, Texas.
GLENN MacTAGGART:
Very tight-knit group. Love to get together. I mean, if you didn't know
they were cocaine dealers, you might think they were just another happy
family. Everybody who was involved in the organization, for the most part,
was related by blood and there was that element of trust, i.e. everybody
in the family knew what was going on and they kept it a secret and
improved the security, somewhat analogous, perhaps, to a Mafia family.
NARRATOR:
Rafael Munoz ran the organization out of Juarez, Mexico, just across the
river from El Paso. He was the one who allegedly dealt with the Colombian
suppliers and he was the one who, authorities say, moved the cocaine from
Juarez into the United States. His method was strikingly simple. Nightly,
his drivers would haul one to four carloads over the bridges. Munoz owned
five luxury sedans with large trunks. The bigger the trunk, the bigger the
load they could carry. In 18 months, Munoz would send at least 900 cars
directly past Customs defenses. Not one was ever caught.
Once the cars were across the border, this El
Paso shopping mall was a transfer point. Cars would be dropped off here by
Munoz's drivers, later to be picked up by the Tapia drivers. The cars
would then be driven to this warehouse at the edge of town. Here the
cocaine would be sorted and repackaged. Up to seven tons would then be
loaded into a hidden compartment of a tractor-trailer truck. The rest of
the trailer was then packed with a bogus cargo of piņatas and Mexican
crafts. Then, on Sunday mornings, the truck would head out toward LOB
Angeles.
Mr. MacTAGGART:
They would not take the most direct route to Los Angeles, as you and I
would do if we were traveling from EL Paso to LOS Angeles. Instead, they
went northeast. They never lost a single truckload traveling through
northern New Mexico.
NARRATOR:
This circuitous route was chosen in order to bypass a more direct but
better-patrolled one. Instead of heading straight to LOS Angeles, they
took secondary roads that wound through the mountains toward the northeast
before turning west.
The biggest obstacle in their way was a border
patrol checkpoint 65 miles north of El Paso. Here all northbound drivers
are stopped and questioned, but the Tapias' trucks always got by.
Mr. MacTAGGART:
They did this very, very carefully. They had cellular telephones to report
on their findings and their observations out there. They had perhaps as
many as a half a dozen people going through that checkpoint routinely that
morning to be sure there were no dogs out there, that there were no
shakedowns or extensive inspections of vehicles there.
NARRATOR:
After getting through the checkpoint, the truck would continue on to its
destination, driving through the night the 800 miles to Los Angeles. But
then the family's luck ran out.
ANNOUNCER:
[September 29, 1989] From ABC, this is World News Tonight with Peter
Jennings.
PETER JENNINGS:
Good evening We begin tonight with a single drug raid and the perspective
it helps to bring this country's overall drug problem. In Los Angeles
overnight, federal agents raided a warehouse and confiscated 22 tone of
cocaine. NARRATOR: This was the biggest cocaine bust ever, but the amount
seized represented only a fraction of the total the family had
successfully smuggled. Finally, it was nothing more than a local citizen's
phone call that lead police to the warehouse.
Mr. MacTAGGART:
This fellow apparently saw some suspicious activity and, for one reason or
another, based on his experience, his knowledge, his intuition, his
judgment, he felt, "There's something here and somebody'd better
check on this." And all I can say is thank God he did.
NARRATOR:
Among the boxes of cocaine were plastic bags filled with more than $12
million in cash. So enormous was the bust that officials had to revise
their estimates of the total U.S. cocaine supply. The principal members of
the Tapia family were rounded up, tried and convicted of drug smuggling
and Rafael Munoz is being tried in Mexico on charges that he ran the
multi-billion-dollar operation. Back in Texas, authorities were scrambling
to explain how so much cocaine could have eluded them.
TRAVIS KUYKENDALL:
Well, we were flabbergasted, to say the least, because it was certainly
not what we had expected and it was not what we were predicting and it was
not what we believed wee happening.
NARRATOR:
Travis Kuykendall is chief of the DEA office in El Paso.
Mr. KUYKENDALL:
That organization, by their own documents, were responsible for importing
over 250 tons of cocaine through EL Paso and the majority of it going to
the Los Angeles area, with some going to Dallas and other areas. But it
indicated over 250 tons in total.
NARRATOR:
How much is 250 tons? Using government figures, that amount would have
been at least 36 percent of all the cocaine brought into the country. If
it seems odd that the Tapia family could have smuggled this much cocaine,
it is doubly so considering how much information authorities had. From an
anonymous informant, the DEA in EL Paso had specific details about the
smuggling operation 11 months before the Los Angeles bust. And this
affidavit filed in a U.S. district court showed what the informant had
disclosed: the names of two of the smugglers, the method of
shipment-tractor-trailers with a secret compartment-and the location of
the smugglers' El Paso warehouse-the names, the method and the location.
The information was specific and accurate, yet the DEA did not open an
investigate ion for nine months. No alert was ever given to checkpoint
inspectors or to the Customs officials on EL Paso's bridges.
Ms. HALLETT:
Well, first of all, I know that they were not sharing that information
with Customs, and shame on them. The country, the United States of
America, is the big loser if any agency does not share that information
with a sister agency, and particularly an agency that is responsible for
the interdiction of those drugs at the border.
NARRATOR:
When reached by FRONTLINE, the DEA agent who was given the leads said she
had been too busy to check them out and she had been unable to convince
her supervisor to provide help. The DEA now says the agent did not develop
the leads enough to warrant help. Travis Kuykendall took over the EL Paso
office a year later.
Mr. KUYKENDALL:
I think we have a problem with the incredible amount of drugs that's being
moved and the minimum number- amount of resources that we have to dedicate
against it. The office, the DEA office, U.S. Customs, border patrol all
during these periods of time were making many seizures and many arrests of
drug traffickers. We just didn't catch this organization.
NARRATOR:
Besides the failure to act on the informant's leads, there are questions
about the performance of Customs inspectors. FRONTLINE has learned Customs
and the Justice Department have investigated allegations of corruption on
the bridges. And in sworn court testimony, the Tapia family's bookkeeper,
Rene Magallanes, stated that the Tapias had been paying bribes to U.S.
Customs officials. Magallanes told investigators that the pay-off was
$10,000 per load. Customs denies any of its agents were involved.
Ms. HALLETT:
The investigation, among other things, pointed out that there was no
corruption involved on the part of Customs that would have led to those
amounts of cocaine coming into the United States.
NARRATOR:
But Customs says that any further details about what its investigation
uncovered are confidential. Questions remain about why no shipments were
stopped.
Mr. MacTAGGART:
They either were extraordinarily lucky or apparently they had some help
somewhere. El Paso's only one of 28 ports of entry between Mexico and the
United States. So, yeah, again, I think bridges are-they're-frankly, they
are fertile ground for smuggling. It's one of the most efficient,
effective ways in which you can smuggle almost anything into the United
States.
NARRATOR:
In El Paso, the inspectors' jobs will only get tougher if, as expected,
trade grows between Mexico and the United States.
BORDER GUARD:
Is this your car sir?
DRIVER:
[unintelligible]
BORDER GUARD:
What are you bringing from Mexico today?
DRIVER:
Nothing
BORDER GUARD:
Thank you, sir.
DRIVER:
Thank you.
NARRATOR:
Our final stop on the border was Candelaria, Texas, a small town located
on the Rio Grande, 46 miles from the closest border station. The town has
one general store, one public telephone and a year round population of
about 60 people. The Rio Grande is a small stream here and a footbridge
crosses it just south of town. Here there are no immigration agents
checking nationality, no Customs officials sifting through people's
possessions. One local cowboy successfully exploited the open border by
repeatedly driving his pickup truck across the Rio Grande.
TV REPORTER:
An expressionless Glyn Robert Chambers filed into his detention hearing
this morning, led by U.S. Marshals. The 37-year-old Alpine man is charged
with possession and intent to deliver over a ton of cocaine.
NARRATOR:
He became the biggest drug smuggler ever arrested in the Big Bend.
Arrested with Chambers was a partner, Rick Thompson. He had only recently
been lured into the Chambers operation by the enormous profits to be had,
$1 million per truckload.
Sheriff RICK THOMPSON, Presidio County:
[1988 Customs public service announcement] Another drug smuggler makes his
way to the state penitentiary. Hello, folks. I'm Rick Thompson, sheriff of
Presidio County. I'm working with the U.S. Customs Service to lock up drug
smugglers. You all can help us ruin a drug smuggler's whole day.
NARRATOR:
Sheriff Thompson was by no means the first Texas sheriff busted for drug
running, but he was one of the most prominent.
Sheriff THOMPSON:
You all can help. Remember: 1-800-BEALERT.
JACK McNAMARA:
Rick Thompson had the reputation of being a great drug buster and a great
lawman.
NARRATOR:
Jack McNamara is the editor of a local newspaper.
Mr. McNAMARA:
Thompson was no tinhorn Texas sheriff. He was a powerful,
politically-impressive man within Texas law enforcement. He was a past
president of the Sheriffs Association of Texas.
NARRATOR:
Thompson also sat on the board of the West Texas Multi-County Narcotics
Task Force and he was politically well connected. He used to go hunting
with a former U.S. commissioner of Customs.
Things are back to normal in the Big Bend area
now that the sheriff and Robert Chambers have been sentenced to life in
prison. Law enforcement got lucky this time. No aerostat or high-speed
boat, no dope-sniffing dog or U.S. Marines stopped Chambers and Thompson.
They were caught only because a former partner decided to talk. He told us
the arrests probably won't change much.
FORMER PARTNER:
As long as there's this much money in drugs, there'll be another way to
get it across, whether it's in the Big Bend area of Texas, whether it's in
Florida, whether it's in California or whether they take it to Canada and
smuggle it back down through the northern part. As long as there's this
amount of money, there will always be a way to get it in.
Mr. ROSENBLOOM:
Will this plug this hole, this pipeline through the Big Bend for drug
smuggling?
Mr. McNAMARA:
Heavens, no. Where they got it is still in place. They got it in Mexico
and they're looking for somebody to run it through here again. There is a
500-year tradition of smuggling in this area and I guarantee you, the day
after Robert Chambers and Rick Thompson fell, somebody stood up and said,
"It's my turn. Let's go."
NARRATOR:
The cocaine keeps coming in, in spite of government spending of about $2
billion a year on border interdiction. The Pentagon has estimated that to
seal all U.S. borders would cost $19 billion in the first year and require
60,000 foot soldiers. The new administration and the new Congress will
have to decide if the war is winnable and at what cost.