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Mr. DYMALLY. Are you talking about the agriculture bill or the immigration bill?

Mr. RANGEL. It is citizenship. Also Congressman Hawkins would like to join this panel. Leo Mouton-is Leo Mouton here? You can sit there, and we will find a seat for you. Mr. Mouton is the deputy director of the Greater Los Angeles Counsel for Deafness, and we want to hear what you have to say.

We will start off now with Ted Hunter, special agent, DEA.

TESTIMONY OF TED HUNTER, SPECIAL AGENT-IN-CHARGE, DRUG ENFORCEMENT ADMINISTRATION, LOS ANGELES DIVISION Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Chairman and distinguished members of the committee, you have my previously submitted prepared statement. I would like to briefly summarize my statement.

Mr. RANGEL. Let me ask all of the witnesses to do that and if the committee has no objections, your entire written statements will be placed into the record at this time. The chair, hearing no objection, so rules. Thank you.

Mr. HUNTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

As a special agent in charge of the Los Angeles field division, my area of responsibility includes the central district of California, the seven counties encompassing some 42,000 square miles with a population of approximately 13 million people. In addition, I have responsibilities for the State of Nevada, the State of Hawaii, the Territory of Guam, the Trust Territories of the Pacific Islands, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas. DEA has a staff of 282 people to cover that area.

As to the trends regarding what DEA seizes in illicit narcotics in this part of the State, Mexico continues to be a prominent source of supply for heroin in the Los Angeles area. In 1984, the Los Angeles division accounted for 10 percent of DEA's heroin seizures. In 1985, the figure climbed to 50 percent. Los Angeles is a major transshipment point for Mexican brown heroin to other cities in the United States.

In the Los Angeles division, Mexican brown tar heroin is replacing the traditional Mexican brown. There are two other types of heroin in Southern California coming from Asia. Cocaine is readily available throughout the division. In the Los Angeles area, it is not uncommon to find traffickers with 100 kilogram quantities of cocaine for sale. Cocaine-related deaths in the Los Angeles area have tripled during the past year.

Cocaine is transported into the Los Angeles area by all methods of transportation. The upper levels of traffic are controlled primarily by Colombian nationals and secondarily by Cuban nationals. Prices remain stable and low at the wholesale level, presently between $20,000 to $40,000 per kilogram. Rock cocaine, or crack, as it is termed on the east coast, was first encountered in the Los Angeles area in 1981. It is sold at a cost of $35 per quarter-gram. Rock is packaged in all the usual forms.

Currently, our information indicates that although rock is readily available it remains at the street level and is not found in the epidemic proportions that are being encountered on the east coast.

In the area of dangerous drugs, Los Angeles remains the primary illicit manufacturing center of PCP. Methamphetamine remains available throughout the Los Angeles area. The main thrust of our enforcement strategy is focused upon working very closely with state and local law enforcement agencies within the division.

The focal point is to work ad hoc cooperative investigations with other enforcement agencies to curtail illegal drug trafficking through asset seizures. These cooperative efforts have resulted in a tremendous amount of assets seized during 1985 in the division. With 7.8 percent of the total DEA strength, we seized approximately $54 million in actual cash or property. This represents 14 percent of the agency's total asset seizures for 1985.

The Los Angeles division was responsible $9 million, 33 percent of the agency forfeiture totals for 1985. As permitted in the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984, DEA has authority to share a portion of seized assets with any state or local participating agency.

During fiscal year 1986, examples of such returns are: $1.8 million to the Anaheim Police Department in cash; $460,000 to the Orange County Sheriff's Department in cash; and approximately $2 million to the Los Angeles Police Department in cash. I might add that we have some $20 million still pending in that pipeline.

Mr. Chairman, in summary, we have achieved significant enforcement accomplishments. Without the close cooperation of law enforcement agencies within the division and elsewhere, many of thee successes would not have taken place.

Thank you very much.

[The statement of Mr. Hunter appears on p. 207.]

Mr. RANGEL. Ted, we have a problem with these successes, to be perfectly honest with you. There is no question that with the resources that you have in DEA that you are doing an outstanding job, especially taking into consideration that you probably have the same number of people today as you had in 1976, notwithstanding the fact that the problem has grown immensely.

But in terms of whether we are holding our own, and since you are leaving the agency, can you give us your candid observation as to what is coming into this country as opposed to the successes that you have testified as relates to seizures?

Mr. HUNTER. I have tried to be candid throughout my entire career. The problem from an enforcement standpoint is astronomical. It has and continues to be so. Enforcement is not the only answer. We are one facet of the total strategy. Los Angeles has an epidemic drug problem. Almost any drug imaginable be it illicit or licit, is readily available in this part of the State, if not throughout the entire State.

We have had one measure of success through enforcement. There are many others. As indicated by the speakers that have been before me, treatment, prevention, and education are certainly all necessary.

Mr. RANGEL. But we have to really take your testimony in that broad perspective because while you share with us that you have seized a thousand pounds of cocaine, then we read in yesterday's Times that in Miami they had 4600 pounds of cocaine. So you are doing the best you can with what you have to work with, but obvi

ously law enforcement, through the DEA, is not going to have any substantial effect on the amount of drugs that are on our streets. Is that a fair statement?

Mr. HUNTER. That is a fair statement.

Mr. RANGEL. It seems to me that we shouldn't be resisting putting together all the agencies and seeing whether we can come up with a better strategy.

Mr. HUNTER. We can always improve, and I think I have seen in my 21-year career at the Federal level all types of improvements. There is always room, and I would be the first one to acknowledge that we have to do better, we have to try harder, we have to keep up with our adversaries, the drug traffickers who are always one step ahead of us.

Mr. RANGEL. You are leaving, but I don't know who is in charge of this national effort. I have been involved in this business now for 20 years myself. You know, it can't be called to term. Anyway, you haven't left yet. We will talk about it. Let's hear from the Customs, Mr. Logan.

TESTIMONY OF WILLIAM LOGAN, COORDINATOR, OPERATION ALLIANCE, U.S. CUSTOMS

Mr. LOGAN. Thank you, Chairman Rangel, members of the committee. As the Regional Commissioner of Customs for the Southwest, and as the head of Operational Alliance, I welcome this opportunity to discuss Customs' role in the enforcement of drug laws on this country's Southwest border and particularly on the California-Mexico border.

As the committee knows, Commissioner von Raab has made drug law enforcement one of the top priorities of the Customs Service. It is his opinion and mine that the drug smuggling threat into California and into other Southwest border States is just as serious today as it was in January of this year when this committee last visited the Los Angeles area.

The fact is narcotic producing countries continue to throw a flood tide of illegal drugs at our borders each day even as we begin to utilize the new resources and authority that the administration and the Congress have provided to battle back.

The traveling public is already feeling the impact of Customs' Operation Alliance related actions. Blue Fire, or Customs' contribution to Operation Alliance, has taken the form of intensive searches of a great many more cars and commercial vehicles than usual. It has consisted of more extensive use of new inspection technology, such as fiber optics and ultrasonic rangefinders, good for detecting narcotics in hollow door frames or truck beds.

Dog team seizures of cocaine thus far this year are up 300 percent over fiscal year 1985.

On the air side, in southern California, some slots will be used to man and maintain new air assets already operating out of the Customs San Diego Air Branch. Air personnel staffing increases are also planned for Customs' Riverside Air Facility.

Other resource initiatives announced as part of Operation Alliance have borne fruit in the final days of Congress. The recently passed drug bill authorizes the purchase of several aerostats de

signed to detect low flying drug-smuggling aircraft. At least one of these will be deployed in southern California. In addition, Customs will soon receive from the Navy two E2-C's enabling us, for the first time, to deploy 360-degree "lookdown" radar exclusively against air smugglers. They will be spending much of their time over the United States-Mexico border as long as the air threat from Mexico persists.

Customs continues to maintain that Mexican overflight privileges would greatly enhance our ability to detect and capture many more air smugglers who are using the remote air strips and small town airfields in northern Mexico to stage their operations. Short of gaining these privileges, Customs has had a need for more comprehensive low-level radar coverage on this side of the border.

Installation of the four aerostats over the next few years will provide a tough line of defense that will make even the most experienced air smuggler think twice. In the short_run, however, the 360-degree radar of the E2-C aircraft soon to be operated in the Southwest will make things very difficult for airborne drug run

ners.

Customs is also taking an aggressive stance on marine smuggling off the California coast. As you may know, heavy seas and a lack of natural geographic "choke points" in the Pacific create a marine enforcement environment very different from that found in south Florida or the gulf coast.

As a result, Customs relies more on intelligence and the electronic tagging devices in its marine effort in the Pacific. Once violators are known to be making their way back to the U.S. territorial waters, Customs is utilizing its floating radar platforms and P-3A Orions to locate and apprehend them.

Needless to say, as a result of these efforts, drug smugglers in southern California can expect to run greater risks than ever before.

Additional good news in the war on drugs is the fact that the drug legislation signed by President Reagan this past Monday provides Customs with greatly enhanced legal authority to put more drug smugglers away for longer periods of time. Most importantly, the bill increases penalties for violation of customs drug laws across the board. It provides Customs with greater authority to stop drug-smuggling operatives from spiriting their drug cash profits out of the country.

It enables Customs to exchange valuable information with officials of other countries who may be able to help in the drug war. It tightens up reporting requirements for boaters and makes illegal the airdropping of drugs or other contraband from aircraft to waterborne accomplices-a favorite smuggling technique in south Florida and the Gulf of Mexico.

The committee should realize, however, that Customs is doing more than preparing to deploy new assets, hire new agents and flex its new legal muscles. Customs is employing techniques that have worked effectively in south Florida and are now beginning to work in the Southwest. The key theme is state and local enforcement and public involvement in the drug war.

Similar to the successful customs Blue Lightning Operation used in south Florida early in 1985, and since institutionalized there,

Customs officials under my direction in the Southwest and Pacific regions are working more and more closely with state and local law enforcement officials.

Customs has and will continue to provide these state and local officials with training, equipment such as voice private radios, and access to tactical information and intelligence which will enable them to provide invaluable assistance to Customs and other Federal law enforcement agents hot on the trail of drug smugglers.

Commissioner von Raab has recently spent several weeks meeting with sheriffs and heads of State police organizations from San Ysidro to Brownsville to Miami to thank them for their contribution and encourage them to continue taking advantage of these newly formed alliances.

Mr. RANGEL. Have you completed your testimony?

Mr. LOGAN. I have.

[The statement of Mr. Logan appears on p. 223.]

Mr. ROYBAL. Customs comes under my committee, and while I understand why you are saying that the top priority of Customs has been the reduction of narcotics coming into the United States, and while I agree that most Customs agents believe that, the truth of the matter is that Customs has not been able to follow through on this position.

I think that Customs, which is one of the most efficient and the most effective agencies in this country, is not getting any support from the administration, nor is it getting any support from the Customs Commissioner. Let's go back a couple of years.

Last year, for example, the recommendations coming from the administration were to reduce Customs personnel by seventeen hundred and some positions. We didn't do that. They also recommended that the budget for Customs be reduced by a nonacceptable percentage point. The committee put that money back in again, put back the personnel, and the President vetoed that bill. Now that is concrete, hard evidence of the fact that you are not getting the help that you should.

This year the recommendation by the administration and from Mr. von Raab was that the personnel in Customs be reduced by 1576 positions. We in the committee raised it back to 1776 positions. We also added an additional 850 positions and we added back the two sophisticated aircraft that the President vetoed last year. We also made available funds for more dogs to be used by Customs, which the President also vetoed last year. We were trying to make available what is needed by Customs to do its job.

I have a great deal of respect for Customs, but I think Customs is being shortchanged by the administration in the recommendations that are being made. This is proven by the vetoes that have taken place and by the annual recommendations to reduce Customs' budget.

In fact, I think you will remember that just 4 years ago I and members of my committee had to fight another proposal by the administration to merge Customs with Immigration. There would have been no separate Customs Agency. Now you would all be working under the Immigration Service.

Now I don't know who came up with that bright idea, but we sure stopped it. And then there was a proposal to dismantle the

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