Tucson Region

Smugglers getting sneakier

The arrest this month of two Tucson men on charges of smuggling marijuana inside coffins isn't the first time traffickers have used strange methods to try to get their drug loads into and through the United States - nor will it be the last. Officials have had little to say about their investigation into the recent coffin case. Robert Dean Harper and Timothy Gavin Hynd face charges in connection with the smuggling of 610 pounds of marijuana through Oklahoma, where they were stopped by the state Highway Patrol on Dec. 10. Both men, who told investigators they were working for a Tucson coffin company, posted bond and returned to Arizona, waiting for the evidence to be presented to an Oklahoma federal grand jury in January, said Hynd's attorney Donn Baker. The investigation is ongoing in Tucson and Oklahoma, said Tony Ryan, spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration's Tucson office. Stashing dope in coffins, investigators say, isn't the only unusual way drugs are shipped from Arizona to the rest of the country. From chocolate-covered, bogus Border Patrol SUVs to fake vehicle rooftops controlled by extravagant hydraulic systems, smuggling tactics have been creative, strange or poorly executed last-minute schemes. The past year has also seen: an Alhambra water truck hiding 3,600 pounds of marijuana near Nogales, a hollowed out truckload of plywood concealing 995 pounds of marijuana near Kino Springs, and a fake FedEx van - the paint of the hand-drawn lettering still dripping down the side - with one illegal entrant driving. "Nothing surprises me anymore," says Lee Morgan, the resident agent in charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Douglas. "Every morning, I stand back and wait to see the new idea they'll come up with." Take the case of the chocolate-covered fake Border Patrol SUVs. "It tasted like chocolate"

In February 2003, Martin Lopez Cardenas, 34, was arrested while driving Coronado National Memorial Road with a second fake SUV in an area that was supposed to be devoid of Border Patrol agents that night, U.S. District Court records show. To the discerning eye, the fake Border Patrol insignia wasn't a bad job. Even the painted-on Department of Justice license plate was a good counterfeit, Morgan said. What stood out was the "mud" around the insignia and the red and blue overhead lights. "We looked at the darker brown stuff, smelled it, it smelled like chocolate, tasted it, it tasted like chocolate," Morgan said. Along with the 1,879 pounds of marijuana agents seized, came Cardenas' story: Smugglers had covered the SUVs with chocolate in Mexico so they'd appear mud-covered so the rolling migra U.S. vehicle would not draw attention while still in Mexico. In November that same year, agents thought it was a little strange to see a dump truck painted with an Arizona Department of Transportation logo driving across a barren dirt road east of Douglas. What they found was Avelino Valdez Vasquez, driving 4,585 pounds of marijuana covered in a thin layer of gravel. "He was out of place where he was at," Morgan said. That case is pending in federal court.

Hanging over Sonora

Nobody knew what to make of the Cessna hovering over Hermosillo, Sonora, on Dec. 7. The pilot appeared lost, and after an hour the Mexican federal Attorney General's Office sent its air interdiction task force to investigate. The white and red-striped Cessna 206 scooted away, followed by federal agents and Mexican media toward the city of Los Mochis in Sinaloa, said Belén Flores, spokeswoman for the agency's Hermosillo bureau. "Possibly he thought we were going to shoot," Flores said. Hours later, a second Cessna was spotted near Cucurpé, a town southeast of the Sonoran city of Magdalena de Kino. That one also got away, but to do so, had to dump its ballast - of 390 kilos, or about 860 pounds of marijuana. High-tech trafficking

In August, Enrique Ballesteros Corral, 34, was stopped at the Nogales port of entry with 83 pounds of cocaine worth at least $580,000. The cocaine was found hidden inside a second ceiling, controlled with a hydraulic jack powered by the SUV's cigarette lighter, federal court records show. He told investigators that he was to be paid $2,000 to take the drugs to Phoenix. His trial is set for early next year. Many cases of hiding the drugs before reaching Tucson are nothing more than hidden compartments inside trucks and cars, or stashing the drugs inside rental trucks, said Lynnette C. Kimmins, chief of the criminal division for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Tucson. Francisco Espinoza Estrada, 36, pleaded guilty last month for having 115 pounds of marijuana he stuffed inside a secondary compartment that added a foot of thickness to the front of the bed of the pickup truck he was driving into Lukeville last July. He was to be paid $3,000 to drive the load to Phoenix, his criminal complaint shows. He faces up to 20 years in prison. Creativity aside, the vast majority of trafficking cases still consist of throwing as many people, cars and backpacks at the border as possible, said Morgan. Doing that, he said, at least some of it will get through. "The odds are in your favor."