NCJ Number
179080
Date Published
July 1998
Length
31 pages
Annotation
This is a review and evaluation of Customs Service drug-enforcement operations along the Southwest border of the United States.
Abstract
The Customs Service must carry out its drug interdiction and trade enforcement missions while facilitating the flow of persons and cargo into the United States. To this end, Congress developed several low-risk cargo entry programs to process certain cargo expeditiously and, at the same time, target for additional scrutiny shipments considered at high risk for drug smuggling. The Line Release Program was designed to expedite cargo shipments that were repetitive, high volume and low risk for narcotics smuggling. Visits to Otay Mesa, CA, Laredo, TX and Nogales, AZ, discovered three control weaknesses in one or more of their applications for entry into the program: lack of specific criteria for determining eligibility, incomplete documentation of applicants and lack of documentation of supervisory review. In addition, the three ports had no confidence in the Three Tier Targeting Program to identify high-risk shipments for narcotics inspection because of a lack of information on foreign manufacturers, doubtful reliability of the designations and the time consuming nature of the procedures given the questionable reliability of the designations. The Automated Targeting System, which automatically assesses shipment entry information for known smuggling indicators, was being tested at Laredo. Notes, tables, appendixes