Drug Crazy - Mission Impossible - Page 152

Seattle, and a hundred other ports of entry, two million tons of cargo will cross the dock tomorrow.^[17]   Los Angeles alone will land 130,000 containers this month. Customs inspectors will examine 400.  The other 129,600 will pass through without so much as a tip of the hat.  And as this tidal wave of heavy machinery, cameras, car parts and cookoo clocks moves off the wharf on endless lines of semi-trailers and flatcars, it’s worth remembering that the entire annual cocaine supply for the United States would fit in just thirteen of those steel boxes.^  A year’s supply of heroin could be shipped in a single container.^[18]

CHAPTER EIGHT—ENDNOTES

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^[1] Interview, Tom Isbell, Supervisory Inspector, U.S. Customs, San Ysidro CA, May 18, 1996

^[2] ibid.

^[3] Washington Post, Feb 20, 1996, pA1“Probe of Customs Targets Corruption Along the Border”

^[4] Interview, Mike Horner, former Customs Inspector, San Diego CA, May 18, 1996

^[5]  Los Angeles Times,Mar 20, 1993, “Corruption Probe Focuses on Ex-Customs Official”;  Washington Post, Feb 20, 1996, pA8, col 6; Reader’s Digest, June 1994, p73 “Trouble on the San Diego Border”;

^[6] Interview, Terri Price, former Treasury Dept. investigator, Los Angeles CA, May 28, 1996

^[7] Hearings, Commerce Subcommittee, U.S. House of Representatives, 102nd Congress, 2nd Sess., Mar 26, 27 & Apr 1, 1992, p2, 32-34.

^[8] Interview, Tom Isbell, May 26, 1996

^[9] Reader’s Digest, Jan 1996, “Our Drug-Plagued Mexican Border” p 57.

^[10] Border Corruption, Associated Press, Mar 1, 1997, 1:59pm

^[11] U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, “Operation Gatekeeper: Landmark Progress at the Border,” October 1995, p5.

^[12] Interview, Sheriff Oren Fox, El Centro CA, May 17, 1996

^[13] Ibid.

^[14] Ibid.

^[15] Inspection tour, Jan 17, 1994; technical data courtesy of Evergreen America Corp.

^[16] Interview, U.S. Customs Chief Inspector Wayne Kornmann, Long Beach, CA, June 7, 1996.

^[17] U.S. Dept. of Commerce, Imports for 1996: 612,546,148,000 kilos by vessel; 25,000,975,000 kilos by air.

^[18] General Accounting Office, “Observations on Elements of the Federal Druig Control Strategy, Mar 97, GAO/GGD-97-42. An estimated 780 metric tons of cocaine produced worldwide 230 tons siezed in 1995. US Consumption estimated at 300 tons of cocaine per year. 300 metric tons of heroin produced: 32 tons were seized.  US Consumption estimated at 10 to 15 tons per year.