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Smugglers are using tuna boats to transport cocaine by Dick Russell Defenders of Wildlife - Summer 2002 edition, http://www.defenders.org/defendersmag/issues/summer02/tunadolphin.html (also see http://www.eurocbc.org/page820.html and http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/New_Global_Economy/tuna_drugs_ Mexico.html) Last December, after several weeks of surveillance, the U.S. Coast Guard boarded the purse-seine vessel Macel, observed in an area closed to yellowfin tuna fishing off Mexico’s southwestern coastline. Found hidden in special compartments, under tons of yellowfin tuna, were some 10.5 tons of pure cocaine with a street value of $500 million. The ship and its 19-man crew were turned over to the Mexican Navy. This wasn’t the first time a tuna seiner had been caught with the illicit substance. In 199[5], the Coast Guard seized the Nataly I, a Panamian-flagged vessel en route from Colombia to an island off the Mexican coast. It had 12 tons of cocaine on board, all in boxes marked "tuna." The ship was found to be part of a fleet of a dozen tuna boats operated by the Cali cartel. Later that year, another seiner was captured in international waters off the coast of Ecuador, carrying seven metric tons of cocaine destined for Manzanillo, Mexico. . . . Officials estimate that as much as two-thirds of all the cocaine destined for the United States, or at least 275 tons a year, now travels by ship via the eastern Pacific. And Mexico is now the primary transit country for cocaine entering the United States from South America as well as being a major source of heroin, methamphetamine and marijuana. Not all of this is coming on tuna seiners, of course, but in the trade cocaine is reportedly referred to as atun blanco -- white tuna. Craig Van Note, executive vice president of the Washington-based Monitor consortium of conservation groups, launched an investigation of the Mexican tuna industry during the early 1990s. According to a declaration filed by Van Note in recent legal proceedings on the tuna-dolphin issue: "The investigation revealed that most of the tuna fleets and canneries in Latin America had been bought up or established by the major drug cartels operating in that region. The long-range fishing boats have been used for smuggling vast quantities of cocaine north to the United States and east to Europe. The canneries have been used to launder billions of dollars. "The violent reaction of the Latin American tuna industry to the embargoes of their dolphin-deadly tuna by the United States and the European Union -- and the massive pressure campaign to overturn the embargoes -- can, in my opinion, be largely attributed to the inadvertent interdiction of this tuna-cocaine pipeline by conservationists seeking dolphin-safe tuna. "The drug cartels’ investment of hundreds of millions of dollars in fleet and cannery operations were crippled by the loss of their major markets for tuna, and their illicit operations under the guise of catching and shipping tuna -- drug smuggling and money laundering -- were compromised by the exposure." Organized Crime and Dolphin Safety by Paul Spong of Orcalab and Ben White of Animal Welfare Institute ECO, the daily summary and commentary sheet of the annual meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), IWC ECO'99 Vol. LI No.4 stories, http://www.greenpeacefoundation.com/news/eco4.html#crime The dirty secret behind the massacre of dolphins by tuna fishermen in the eastern tropical Pacific is that organized crime syndicates own virtually all of the tuna fleets and canneries in Latin America-- and use these companies to smuggle cocaine and heroin throughout the world and to launder narco-profits. The Cali and Medellin cartels of Colombia, the Mexican drug gangs, and even the Sicilian Mafia have bought into the Latin American tuna industry over the past 25 years as ideal fronts for their criminal activities. . . . The "tuna/cocaine connection" was organized in the 1970's when two Sicilian Mafia families . . . set up operations in Venezuela to smuggle heroin into the Western Hemisphere. Because the Mafia controls Italy's tuna industry, the Sicilians established tuna fleets and processing plants in Venezuela and nearby countries as cover for their narco-trafficking. In the early 1980's, the Sicilians entered into partnerships with the Medellin and Cali Cartels to smuggle cocaine into Europe, where the Mafia had an established heroin network. By the early 1990's [they] . . . were annually shipping 200 tons of cocaine, worth more than $10 billion, to Europe, most of it hidden in cans or frozen blocks of tuna. The Sicilians made so much money off the tuna/cocaine connection that they have invested heavily throughout the Caribbean and Latin America. Law enforcement sources report that they have bought control of Aruba, effectively turning that island state into a criminal enterprise for drug-running and money-laundering. . . . The largest tuna/cocaine operation was set up in the late 1980's by the Cali Cartel and the Mexican drug cartels. A Cali underboss . . . formed dozens of companies and banks in Panama, which bought tuna fleets and canneries. . . . Remarkably, both the Mexican and US governments have chosen to ignore the tuna/cocaine connection because of the corruption at the highest levels of the Mexican and Panamanian governments. . . . Environmentalists, meanwhile, are asking all cetacean activists to help expose this dirty deal dooming dolphins. U.S. launches aerial surveillance of border by Jane Armstrong Globe and Mail, 21 August 2004, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/ RTGAM.20040820.wxbord0821/BNStory/National/ Bellingham, Wash. -- The Blackhawk helicopter hovered over the Pacific Ocean, its pilot pointing out the coves and bays preferred by drug dealers when they bring their wares from Canada. At Birch Bay, less than 10 kilometres south of the border, the pilot dived for a closer view at the scene of a drug bust last month in which custom agents in a boat retrieved $200,000 (U.S.) from the water and arrested two Canadians after intercepting what they say was an exchange of money for drugs. . . . The U.S. Department of Homeland Security will pour millions of dollars into equipment and personnel at five border crossings with Canada over the next four years to improve security. . . . It's no surprise that the first border reinforcements will be at British Columbia, long a sore point for U.S. law enforcers. It was from B.C. that convicted terrorist Ahmed Ressam attempted to enter the United States in 1999 in a car containing explosive material. In terms of drugs, last year a record 2,100 kilograms of B.C.-grown marijuana entered the United States.