CARIBBEAN ISLANDS PROVING TO BE PARADISE - FOR DRUG CARTELS

Tranquil Setting Offers Fewer Headaches Than Southwestern U.S.

WASHINGTON AD In the normally tranquil islands of the Caribbean, U.S.
and foreign authorities have noticed, there has been a slow, and
bloody, shift in the drug trade during the past few years.

Colombian drug traffickers, meeting resistance at the United States'
Southwest border, have increased their distribution in the chain of
islands. From there, they smuggle the drugs to the United States.

"We're definitely starting to see a shift into the Caribbean," said
Michael S. Vigil, special agent in charge of the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Agency's Caribbean division. "It92s coming back this way."

Last year, for the first time in a decade, more cocaine entered the
United States through the Caribbean than across the border with
Mexico, U.S. law enforcement officials said.

Drug officials and experts on drug trafficking say the shift has
occurred for several reasons, including stepped-up enforcement along
the border with Mexico.

They say the Mexican traffickers have also become more powerful and
the Colombians AD the world's major supplier of illegal drugs AD are
trying to avoid their stranglehold.

Officials estimate that about 500 tons of cocaine annually leave for
the United States from Colombia, which grows about 60 percent of the
world's cocaine and handles about 90 percent of its refined product.

In the early 1990s, Colombian traffickers were smuggling almost 70
percent of their cocaine through the Southwest U.S. border, the DEA
says.

Last year, of the 500 tons, U.S. officials say, drug-flow estimates
show that about 54 percent was destined for the Southwest border and
43 percent through the Caribbean. Now some drug-trafficking experts
say the percentage today is much closer to 50-50.

Members of Congress and the Clinton administration say the best way to
attack the Colombian drug lords is on their own turf by assisting the
country's armed forces. Last month, Congress passed a $1.3 billion aid
package, which includes 60 helicopters and hundreds of U.S. troops to
root out drug production.

Another part of that drug-interdiction effort involves countries that
historically have been conduits for Colombian drugs, said U.S.
officials, pointing to recent efforts by Mexican law
enforcement.

In the past few years, Mexican authorities have fired more than 1,000
corrupt federal police officers and begun attacking high-level
corruption. Those actions have made U.S. law enforcement officials
less cautious about sharing information with Mexican police, leading
to increased cooperation, U.S. authorities say.

Another reason for the shift, experts say, is the high price Colombian
traffickers must pay their Mexican counterparts to use their routes.
In some cases, Colombian suppliers must give more than half their
product to Mexican traffickers. In contrast, Caribbean traffickers
charge about 20 percent, authorities say.

Also, the traffickers have targeted Europe more and can more
efficiently transport their drugs by consolidating the U.S.-European
smuggling routes through the Caribbean, experts say.

All those reasons point to the Colombian drug lords' decisions to
return to their mainstay route form the 1980s: the Caribbean, said
Bruce Bagley, an expert on drug-trafficking and a professor of
international relations at the University of Miami.

"This continued the evolution of the process," Bagley said. "They
began to look for new linkages and re-establish old ones. The
Caribbean is a fertile ground."

In the late 1970s and 1980s, Colombian traffickers smuggled most of
their drugs through the Caribbean islands, using small planes to drop
bails of drugs for pickup by waiting boats.

But when authorities began targeting those smugglers, the dealers
moved much of their trafficking to Mexico, which was rife with
corruption and has a lengthy border with the United States.

Now, they are returning for the same reasons they used the Caribbean
routes before: Vast seas, dozens of nations, miles of coastline and
proximity to Colombia and other South American countries are a
smuggler's delight.

"There are so many islands," said Vigil of the DEA. "It's very
difficult to control all the borders."

Two areas pose significant problems, U.S. authorities say AD Haiti and
Puerto Rico.

Haiti has a very weak police force, authorities say. Last year about
67 metric tons of cocaine moved through Haiti, a 24 percent increase
over 1998's 54 metric tons, the State Department says.

Once in Haiti, the drugs are smuggled across to the other half of the
island of Hispaniola, the Dominican Republic, where middlemen put them
on large container ships bound for the United States or for other islands.

Traffickers also have been increasingly targeting Puerto Rico, which
is 80 miles from Haiti and 600 from Colombia.

Because Puerto Rico is U.S. territory, customs officials do not
inspect flights to mainland cities nor do they inspect ships leaving
from San Juan's busy port for the United States.

But Puerto Rico isn't just a way station. Instead of paying middlemen
in dollars, dealers often give them drugs to sell or use, leading to
increased addiction rates and more violence.

An island of almost 4 million people, Puerto Rico recorded more than
560 homicides in 1999 AD 80 percent drug-related, DEA officials said.
This month, agents arrested 40 members of a major drug-trafficking
organization in Puerto Rico that was responsible for distributing more
than $1 billion in cocaine and heroin a year and killing dozens of
people.

In the raid, federal authorities arrested Miguel O'Connor-Colon, known
as La Cabra, "the goat," whom they accuse of running a vicious drug
organization responsible for at least 30 slayings in the year before
the raid.

To stem the increased flow of drugs through the Caribbean, U.S.
officials have added agents and reconnaissance flights, and are trying
to build better ties with local police agencies.

But outside experts say those efforts will simply lead to different
drug routes.

"It's called `push down, pop up,92" said Terry Parssinen, co-author of
the 1998 book, "Webs of Smoke: Smugglers, Warlords, Spies, and the
History of the International Drug Trade."

"When you apply pressure in the Caribbean, then traffickers move to
another place," Parssinen said. "As long as demand for drugs in the
United States is strong, the enforcement possibilities are going to be
strictly limited."