Lawmen crack down on international drug traffickers
It is hardly an exaggeration to call the battle of governments against the international drug trade a war. Consider the elements: airplanes, ships, guns, vast sums of money, raids on enemy territories. In the past few years, the U.S. has fortified its resources and strengthened ties with its allies in the global fight against narcotics dealers. For a while it seemed the forces of law were winning. But it now seems that the U.S. is facing an enemy more powerful and elusive than previously thought. November brought troubling incidents in Mexico, Colombia and Peru, three major fronts of the drug war:
> "It's the bust of the century," said Jon Thomas, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics Matters. Mexican drug agents, with the cooperation of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) officials, seized and destroyed a record 9,000 tons of marijuana in raids on five plantations in Mexico's northern state of Chihuahua. (The previous record drug bust took place in 1978, when 570 tons of marijuana were seized in Colombia.) In the U.S., the Mexican pot would have had a street value of about $4 billion, according to Mexican judicial officials. The sheer volume may prompt a reassessment of drug traffic and use in the U.S.
> The code name for the Colombia operation was Hat Trick. The plan was to deploy dozens of Coast Guard and Navy vessels across a wide sweep of the Caribbean to intercept the huge shipments of marijuana that are transported from Colombia to the U.S. at the conclusion of the pot harvest in November and December. The elaborate strategy called for Colombian soldiers to move against marijuana traffickers in the Guajira Peninsula, between the Gulf of Venezuela and the Caribbean. With Venezuelan and Panamanian soldiers guarding their respective borders, the smugglers would be forced to ship out the marijuana. At sea in the Caribbean, they were to be met by American vessels. The pot would be confiscated and the smugglers arrested. Operation Hat Trick was big, ambitious and, supposedly, highly secret.
But word of Hat Trick began leaking almost as soon as the plan was launched about four weeks ago. Federal officials said last week that while the scheme had been "modestly successful," American and Colombian press reports had helped warn drug traffickers of the supposedly clandestine operation. Bad weather may have hurt the operation by delaying the harvest and the shipments. Nevertheless, Operation Hat Trick will continue.
> In Peru, American officials are concerned about leftist guerrillas who may be working with narcotics traffickers to end a U.S.-financed program that hires Peruvian workers to destroy coca plants, the leaves of which are used in the manufacture of cocaine. Two weeks ago anti-drug laborers were attacked in the middle of the night in a house where they were sleeping. According to an eyewitness account, about four unidentified men burst into the building and began firing shotguns and revolvers. At least 15 workers were killed and three were wounded.