NORTHWEST SEEN AS GROWTH AREA IN DRUG SMUGGLING

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000706580028-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 20, 2012
• Sequence Number: 28
• Publication Date: January 22, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706580028-9
y ARTICLE AP ee January i' oo
ON PAGE -Wit
North west Seen as Growth Area in Drug m ugg tng
By WALLACE TURNER
Spsa.I to The Now Yot Thaw
SEATTLE, Jan. 21 - The Coast
Guard's seizure of a small Honduran
cos,stal freighter last weekend with 447
pounds of cocaine hidden aboard has
helped to confirm some officials' suspi- ,
clans that Puget Sound is a new, major
entry point for drugs.
Quint Vaillanueva, the regional Cus-
toms Service commissioner, said he
believed that increased pressure by
law-enforcement agencies in the South-
east had caused drug smuggling rings
to shift operations to the Pacific North-
west. "Areas on the West Coast are
becoming a smuggler's paradise," the
official said.
William Redkey, an assistant United
States attorney here, said the extensive
and isolated coastlines of the Olympic
Peninsula and the islands in the San
Juan group make Puget Sound desira-
ble from a smuggler's point of view.
The cocaine taken last weekend was
"one of the largest drug shipments
ever seized on the West Coast," he
said.
Today the captain of the seized ves-
sel, Guillermo Rodriguez-Reina, 48
years old, and the first mate, Favio
Soto, 40, both Colombian citizens, were
ordered held without bail until a deten-
tion hearing next Monday. Nine crew
members were also held while Federal
officials interviewed them.
John Carlson, a customs agent, said
in a sworn complaint that Captain
Rodriguez-Rein was thought to have
been previously involved in marijuana
smuggling operations and that Mr.
Soto had been arrested and convicted
in 1981 of smuggling 19,900 pounds of
marijuana into Palm Beach, Fla. He
was later deported.
Freighter Aroused Suspicion
Fl i a kesman
for the Customs Service in Los
ales said intelli ante re o had Ilicated that a sm coas freight
er
o Latin American registrv was
caine into the Pacific Northwest.
Last y e oast Guard cut-
ter Point Countess sighted the Hondu-
ran vessel, the Eagle I, on radar as she
passed near Neah Bay on the Olympic
Peninsula. The ship had not reported
her presence as required, and officials
said that as the cutter approached,
Eagle I put forth heavy smoke and
turned toward Canadian waters.
"The freighter's master said he had
no trouble, but was clearing his
stacks," according to Lieut. Comdr.
Tom Pearson, a Coast Guard spokes-
man here, but the cutter's commander
was suspicious because the ship had
turned toward Canada and because she
was in heavily traveled American
waters without notification.
Commander Pearson said suspicions
were heightened after the freighter
was boarded and a light load of Pana-
manian hardwood was given as the rea-
son for the voyage.
"It just wasn't enough cargo to jus-
tify the trip," the spokesman said, "so
it was decided to bring the vessel into
Port Angeles for a search."
Other Smuggling Incidents
In a concealed space that had been
welded closed, searchers from the Cus-
toms Service, the Drug Enforcement
Administration and the local police
found 205 plastic bags filled with pure
cocaine. The officials' estimates of the
value of the cargo ranged from $14 mil-
lion wholesale to $100 million retail.
Officials say the cocaine seizure fol-
lows the discovery of large shipments
of heroin entering the United States in
this area. Last fall ice buckets being
brought through Seattle-Tacoma Inter-
national Airport by a Hong Kong busi-
nessman were found to be insulated
with heroin, and 212 pounds was seized.
Thomas Moore, the Customs Service
port director at Anacortes, Wash.,
north of Seattle, said, "We find a lot of
small stuff for personal use and retail
sales in checking people off the interna-
tional ferries."
And in the Yakima area, where
many Mexican immigrants come to
work in agriculture, illegal aliens are
used extensively by smugglers of a
Mexican heroin known as "black tar,"
according to Kent E. Lundgren of the
Immigration and Naturalization Serv-
ice. The Seattle police said most of the
24 people arrested last year on charges
of smuggling heroin were Mexican citi-
zens who had entered the United States
illegally.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/03/20: CIA-RDP90-00965R000706580028-9