I am delighted to have this opportunity to speak to all of you this afternoon. To speak to the federal agents and the federal prosecutors who are getting the job done. Who bring the skill and tenacity to put together the biggest, most important drug trafficking and money laundering cases investigated and prosecuted by our government. These are OCDETF cases. And I salute each and every one of you who participates in this effort.

I am honored to have been selected by the President to be the Commissioner of Customs, and I'm glad to be back in Washington. Well, I think I am. Washington is a tough town. In fact, I was reminded recently that a "friend" in Washington is best defined as someone who stabs you ... in the front. Of course, Harry Truman once advised, if you need a friend in Washington: get a dog.

But perhaps the best advice I ever received about serving in Washington was this: Someone told me to remember one thing - Never screw up ... on a slow news day.

As Karen mentioned, my involvement with OCDETF goes back a long ways - almost to the time that OCDETF was stood up.

I have participated in OCDETF as a core-city U.S. Attorney, as head of the DEA, and now as head of the U.S. Customs Service. And I tried many drug conspiracy cases as an Assistant U.S. Attorney before there was an OCDETF.

I spoke at OCDETF's tenth anniversary conference, and I am proud to be speaking again at this one. If any one here in this room was at the tenth anniversary conference, I'm sure you'll agree I haven't changed a bit!

But OCDETF has changed somewhat. It's gotten even better, because of the efforts of Karen Tandy, among others. Because of Karen's efforts, less time is spent sorting out which OCDETF works which targets. And turf consciousness, mainly a Washington problem, has abated. Everyone shares in the credit. Success, indeed, has many fathers - and mothers - parents.

September 11th changed America, and it changed Customs. The U.S. Customs House in New York, at 6 WTC, was destroyed on the morning of September 11th when the North Tower collapsed on top of it. Our Customs House was an 8-story building next to the North Tower. Fortunately, none of the nearly 800 Customs employees were killed.

3000 people were murdered that day in New York and here in Washington and in Pennsylvania. And we will never ever forget them.

On the morning of September 11th, at about 10:05 am, U.S. Customs went to Level One Alert at all border Ports of Entry, the highest level of security without actually shutting down the borders. And because of the continuing and real terrorist threat, we are still at Level One today.

As I said yesterday, counter-terrorism is the number one priority of the Customs Service and it will be for the foreseeable future.

But let me say this: Customs is not abandoning our counter-drug mission. We are not reducing and will not reduce our commitment to OCDETF or other Customs counter-narcotics missions.

And I don't have to tell you that the federal government's anti-drug mission is as important as ever.

What is the overall goal of our national drug strategy? What should it be?

Let me say what it is not: It is not to eliminate illegal drugs from our society. That cannot be done.

It is, however, I submit, substantially reducing the level of consumption and abuse, and containing the drug problem. That can be done. We have done it before. But we need, through OCDETF, to keep after it.

We are not at the depths that we were at when OCDETF started in the early 80s, but the devastation caused by illegal drugs is plainly unacceptable and I fear that - if we do not keep a strong focus - we will slip back into the abyss.

Through a lot of efforts on a lot of fronts, including OCDETF, it is well to remember that we saw dramatic drops in the number of illegal drug users in the United States, in the mid-80s, into the early 1990s.

From the high water mark in 1985, there were, according to the U.S. Household Survey, 5.9 million regular cocaine users. By 1992, that number had fallen to 1.3 million.

And it wasn't just cocaine, regular marijuana users, for example, dropped from 21 million people in 1985 to 9 million in 1992.

Why was that? Surely it was a combination of things. It was a heightened enforcement effort that affected availability and drove up price. And OCDETF investigations definitely reduced the major traffickers' ability to produce and distribute cocaine.

The message of enforcement of our drug laws is one of the most powerful educational messages we have.

When you do nothing to enforce the law, you invite contempt and encourage illegal drug use and dealing.

It was the removal of the street corner drug dealers that inflected many of our cities.

These gave "pushing" drugs a new name. And all of these things contributed to an attitudinal change. Drugs were, in a word, no longer cool. But one of the most important people in this substantial reduction was someone who stood up and said, "Just Say No."

Nancy Reagan was derided and ridiculed. But that was a powerful message. Using illegal drugs is wrong. Just say no. And millions and millions of kids did.

There were many, many active community leaders that campaigned tirelessly against drug use and abuse. Many had lost their own kids or siblings to drugs.

There was Bill Bennett, a remarkable intellect, who devised the very first National Drug Strategy, still the blueprint for a sound strategy that we need to follow on a sustained basis.

Don't think that you can't impact the drug problem.

You can. We have.

Tell that to those who would throw in the towel and legalize drugs. I can't think of a worse mistake.

An important part of President Bush's and our national strategy is to incapacitate the kingpins, the key lieutenants, the financial facilitators. That is OCDETF. OCDETF plays and should play a big role, along with a robust international effort with law enforcement in source and transit zone countries, like Colombia and Mexico.

Is this a difficult and complex task. It is.

Can it be done? You bet.

In the late 1980s, Pablo Escobar and the individuals that made up the Medellin Cartel - Carlos Lehder, Rodrigez-Gacha, the Ochoa brothers - were all killed or put in prison in the U.S. They said it couldn't be done. They were wrong.

It was the same with the Cali Cartel. But this kind of effort must be sustained. Unfortunately, it wasn't, partly because of the election of President Samper, and other reasons. We lost our focus.

Supply and demand go hand-in-hand. Reduce availability of addictive and pernicious drugs like meth and cocaine, and you know what?: you will reduce consumption and abuse and the serious crime that everyone in law enforcement knows is related to the use of these drugs.

So let me say loud and clear: OCDETF investigations and prosecutions of the highest level drug trafficking organizations and their money launders are a critical part of our nation's anti-drug efforts and of the President's national drug control strategy.

While counter-terrorism is the number one priority of the Customs Service, our anti-drug mission remains a priority. I have not reduced our commitment to drug enforcement, and I do not foresee any reduction in that commitment if we move, as appears likely, to the new Department of Homeland Security.

The Customs Anti-Drug Mission
Since I have you here, let me tell you a bit about Customs, which is actually celebrating its 213th anniversary today. Customs was created by the fifth act of Congress on July 31, 1789. For 213 years, the Customs Service has had a prominent place in our nation's growth, its economic stability, and its national security. Most of you know the agent side of Customs. That's the side I knew when I was an AUSA and later U.S. Attorney.

But, I actually did not know that Customs is one of the largest federal law enforcement agencies - with about 12,000 armed Customs inspectors, canine enforcement officers, and special agents.

And while the counter-drug mission is not Customs only mission, it is an important mission. Customs is the only federal agency that has an important drug interdiction as well as a drug investigation mission.

The Customs Inspectors and CEOs are at all 301 ports of entry where people, vehicles, or goods enter the United States. And Customs has 131 field offices - SAIC and RAIC offices - scattered across the country. We also have Customs Attaché offices in over 30 foreign countries from Beijing to Berlin to Bogota -- and actually have Customs advisors in another two dozen nations from Uzbekistan to Lithuania as part of our anti-proliferation and border control training programs.

On the interdiction front, we have nearly 9,000 Customs inspectors and CEOs. The 600 canine teams help us detect both illegal drugs and drug money at our land border POEs and at our international airports.

We also have some great x-ray machines that can detect drugs hidden in truck trailers. On an average day, folks, the U.S. Customs Service seizes over 5,500 pounds of illegal drugs at the border POEs. Cocaine, heroin, ecstasy, meth, marijuana, khat - you name it.

But Customs also has assets to interdict drugs before they even reach the U.S. border.

I didn't fully realize the extent of Customs' Air Force until I was nominated to head Customs. The Customs Air and Marine Interdiction Division includes a fleet of Citation tracker jets, and Customs pilots flying Citations work with Mexican authorities to interdict drugs in Mexico. This is Operation Halcon. From FY 2000 to present, Operation Halcon has led to the seizure of over 5, 000 pounds of cocaine and over 160,000 pounds of marijuana.

Our Customs P-3 aircraft fly missions to detect trafficker aircraft and vessels in the Caribbean, in source nations and in the Eastern Pacific - which is off the west coast of Colombia, Central America, and Mexico.

The Eastern Pacific is the most important transportation route for bulk loads of Colombian cocaine, where multi-ton cocaine seizures are routine from vessels - mainly go-fasts, supported by a picket of refueling fishing vessels.

In one recent seizure two months ago, one of Customs P-3 aircraft working out of Costa Rica located and identified a fishing vessel actually west of the Galapagos Islands, and that's far out. With the assistance of the Coast Guard in the water, 5.5 metric tons of cocaine were seized from the vessel. Customs and Coast Guard make a dynamic interdiction team. To shut the East Pac down, we'll need to add a law enforcement component.

On the investigative front, slightly over half of our special agent resources are devoted to drug investigations. Some of our best drug investigations stem from interdiction efforts at the borders - our agents work closely with our inspectors. We do a lot of controlled deliveries and follow-up investigations in order to identify and take down drug smuggling organizations.

For example, some of you know about the recent money laundering case involving Merchant's Bank in New York. Maria Carolina Nolasco, the principal target, was an executive of the Merchant Bank of New York who was recently charged with money laundering, involving the laundering of a half billion dollars in drug money. This was an OCDETF case that began with the seizure of 500 kilograms of cocaine by U.S. Customs inspectors at the Newark seaport. IRS CI and DEA joined Customs agents in this successful OCDETF drug money investigation.

The Customs Service has tackled and developed some of the best drug money laundering cases, and pioneered the undercover money laundering techniques going back 20 years to Operation Greenback - one of the earliest anti-narcotics money laundering task forces, and it was led by Customs. Through Greenback, Customs identified and infiltrated the money laundering systems used by Colombian drug traffickers. Greenback paved the way for more complex and sophisticated money laundering investigations.

More recently, Customs led Operation Casablanca, the first large-scale attack on the money laundering activities of major Mexican drug traffickers. Casablanca included undercover penetration of Mexican banks for the first time, ever.

Operation Wirecutter is an even more recent example of a Customs-led OCDETF drug money laundering case. It was taken down a couple of months ago. This investigation targeted the money laundering activities of the Gamboa organization, a major drug trafficking organization based in Colombia.

Undercover pick-ups carried out in Operation Wirecutter led to 21 related money-laundering investigations in cities throughout the United States. The investigation resulted in the arrest of 41 people and the seizure of $7.5 million, as well as 755 kilograms of cocaine.

Significantly, eight major Colombian money brokers were among those arrested in Bogota, and they will be extradited to the United States. This is the first time Colombia has agreed to extradite money launderers.

Customs has continued to hone its money laundering expertise throughout the 1990s. And it has considerable experience and know-how to work these cases.

With re-commitment by OCDETF to targeting the financing that sustains major drug trafficker organizations, Customs money laundering experience and expertise, I submit, is more important than ever. And the Customs Service will continue to use that expertise in OCDETF cases. Money laundering is an investigative priority for Customs.

I think it is worth mentioning, by the way, that our Customs experience and expertise in money laundering is also proving enormously beneficial to Operation Green Quest - to our efforts to identify and disrupt the sources of funding for international terrorist organizations.

Green Quest brings together the collective and formidable money-laundering and financial-crimes experience of U.S. Customs, IRS-CI, U.S. Secret Service, FINCEN, DOJ, OFAC, and other agencies. FBI agents also participate in Operation Green Quest. Pooling the skills and resources of various agencies to pursue - cooperatively - a shared investigative goal, you can see that Green Quest has a lot in common with OCDETF. In many ways, OCDETF was its inspiration.

Green Quest has aggressively moved against terrorist funding and has already opened and is working on several hundreds of investigations. To date, Green Quest efforts have resulted in the seizure of $22.7 million, 38 arrests, and 26 indictments.

I cannot conclude a discussion about Customs drug enforcement efforts without mentioning, of course, what is perhaps most relevant to why we are all here at this conference - I view and the Customs Service views OCDETF as one of the federal government's primary drug enforcement tools, and it is a big part of Customs' anti-drug mission.

But, to be the force it was meant to be, OCDETF must heed Attorney General Ashcroft's message and work to ensure that its efforts are geared toward investigating and prosecuting the most significant drug-trafficking organizations and their money launderers.

This was OCDETF's original mission, and we must all re-commit to that mission.

So, I want you to know that the Customs Service is still in the drug enforcement game, with as much force as ever. And I expect that we will continue to be in that game, and we will continue to be actively involved with OCDETF, after Customs is transferred to the new Department of Homeland Security.

In fact, it is my belief that the new Department will actually make our country's drug interdiction efforts more successful.

The new Department will house, under one roof, almost all of the agencies responsible for drug interdiction - the Coast Guard, the INS Border Patrol, and the Customs Service. This can only make our cooperative and sometimes overlapping efforts even stronger.

For example, I believe we will be better able to coordinate controlled deliveries and pass-throughs, without the sometimes difficult clearance issues at interior Border Patrol checkpoints. I believe we will be better able to coordinate transit zone interdiction efforts with the Coast Guard - for example, by coordinated interdiction and law enforcement efforts to shut down the East PAC trade route for bulk cocaine.

Conclusion
During this challenging time in our nation's history, when we are working to defend and to defeat international terrorist organizations, we cannot ignore other threats to the security and well-being of our nation posed by international drug trafficking organizations that are the primary cogs in the drug availability in our country.

Such two-front battles stretch our resources. That is undeniably true. Just ask Director Mueller. However, through task forces such as OCDETF, we are able to leverage our resources and expertise. And, working together, we can be and will be far more effective.

Thank you and God bless.

Commissioner Bonner reserves the right to edit his written remarks during his oral presentation and to speak extemporaneously. Thus, his actual remarks, as given, may vary slightly from the written text.