On a chilly South Texas afternoon, 20 federal and state lawmen sporting flak jackets and semiautomatic rifles descended on a secluded bungalow near the Rio Grande in Starr County. They arrested three men who were darting out the back. Inside, the cops found giant trash bags of marijuana. Suddenly the ceiling gave way from the weight of other people hiding in the bungalow. All told, 14 Mexicans were charged with drug possession, and 2,000 lbs. of dope were confiscated.
The raid last February was one of a mounting number of armed encounters along the Texas border between lawmen and well-organized, well-financed narcotics rings. As authorities have cracked down on smuggling in Florida, the Rio Grande valley has emerged as the hot corridor for drug runners. One-third of all the cocaine, marijuana and heroin now entering the U.S. from Mexico is believed to come across the valley.
Nowhere is the traffic heavier than in Starr County, a remote, Rhode Island- size expanse of gentle hills that flanks the Rio Grande southeast of Laredo. From heavily armed safe houses in tiny riverfront hamlets, smugglers oversee the packaging and shipment of drugs by truck and plane into the U.S. interior.
By one federal estimate, 40% of all the drugs crossing South Texas move through Starr, sometimes amounting to 15 tons of marijuana and 1,000 lbs. of coke a week. Confiscations in the Rio Grande valley doubled last year; arrests this year by the Drug Enforcement Administration shot up from 230 to 570.
Starr County's 92 miles of riverbank affords myriad landing points for rubber rafts and the human "mules" who wade across with backpacks. Among some of the Hispanics who make up 96% of Starr's population, smuggling has been a tradition since the Civil War, when Confederate cotton was moved south.
In an area of close-knit families, strangers stand out, making police undercover work nearly impossible. Good informants are tough to recruit because, as DEA Agent Kenneth Miley explains, "families don't tell on families," although that has changed some now that the feds pay bigger money for solid tips. Nonetheless, the established smuggling networks ensure a continuity to operations. After the feds busted one cocaine runner last year, his brother took over. When he was arrested, another brother came to the fore.
The drug trade is controlled by perhaps a dozen Mexican "mafiosos," some of whom live south of the border. The mafiosos are assuming new muscle as Mexico's economy declines and illegal aliens pour into Texas. Drug gangs have enlisted wetbacks as couriers, paying them $150 or more to float sacks of pot across the Rio Grande. Many illegals stay on to become full-time drug runners.