DRUG TRAFFIC UP AT KENNEDY AIRPORT

NEW YORK - Drug trafficking is up at John F. Kennedy International airport,
despite heightened post-Sept. 11 security measures at area airports,
according to a published report.

In the last seven months, customs inspectors at Kennedy airport have seized
three times as much heroin and Ecstasy than in the same period between 2000
and 2001, the Daily News reported Sunday.

The report also said the number of people who tried to smuggle drugs by
swallowing them was up by 65 percent at Kennedy airport.

Customs officials said the increase is in part because drug traffickers
believe security checks are focusing on terrorists, not drugs.

"One of the smugglers, while he was passing the drugs, said, 'Don't you
read the papers? You should be looking for terrorists,' " said Susan
Mitchell, the top customs official at Kennedy. "They thought this was a
vulnerable time."

At Newark International airport, the amount of heroin seized has risen 40
percent in the past seven months, the News reported.

Two children recently were found allegedly carrying drugs at Kennedy airport.

A Colombian woman was charged with child abuse in Colombia last week for
allegedly putting her 5-year-old daughter on a plane to New York with more
than two pounds of heroin in her child's suitcase.

The girl was caught when she arrived at Kennedy airport in mid-April; she
was traveling alone. And a 12-year-old boy arriving from Nigeria was caught
with 87 heroin-filled condoms in his stomach at Kennedy Airport last month.