I want to take this opportunity to talk a little today about U.S. Customs, our interdiction challenges, and what cooperation in law enforcement means to our agency and the national counter-drug effort.

U.S. Customs has been in the business of counter-smuggling for over two hundred years. Two hundred and nine years to be exact. In 1790, one year after the Customs Service was founded, the U.S. Congress appropriated funding for ten armed revenue cutters for the new agency. The ships were stationed at key ports to protect the tariff duties upon which our young republic depended for its economic survival.

It wasn't until the passage of the federal income tax act in 1913 that the Internal Revenue Service replaced Customs as the nation's number one revenue producing agency. Yet Customs still today deposits over $20 billion dollars a year in the federal coffers, second only to the IRS.

Whereas two centuries ago Customs' primary enforcement concern was tariff evasion, it serves today as one of the federal government's leading counter-drug forces, seizing more illegal narcotics than any other agency. Last year, Customs took in over 1.3 million pounds of heroin, cocaine, marijuana, and other drugs.

With both commercial and drug enforcement responsibilities, we have as broad a mandate as any law enforcement agency you'll find. So what does HIDTA mean to us? In a word, HIDTA means help. HIDTA is a crucial force multiplier for the Customs Service, at a time when our resources are being stretched to the limit. But we're not just interested in how HIDTA can help us. We also want everyone who participates in HIDTA to know what Customs brings to the table, and how we can help you.

Customs is involved in all phases of smuggling investigations. Our unique position at the border allows us to exploit the connections between drug transportation and distribution. We realize that neither interdiction nor investigation alone is adequate to stem the flow of narcotics entering the country. Any ultimate answer to the drug problem in America must be based on demand reduction. Enforcement remains, however, a crucial component of our nation's response.

The key to effective interdiction is building a strong investigative bridge between border smuggling activity and criminal drug trafficking inland. We build that bridge every time we make a seizure. Some twenty-seven hundred Customs special agents carry out controlled deliveries, undercover operations, and title three-based investigations in an effort to disrupt and dismantle smuggling networks.

Unfortunately, their workload has never been greater. The Southwest Border continues to be the major crossing area for illegal drugs of all types. ONDCP estimates that as much as 230 metric tons, or close to sixty percent of the total drugs smuggled into the United States comes through this area.

On an average day along the Southwest Border, Customs processes eight hundred thousand passengers, two hundred and fifty thousand cars, and eleven thousand trucks. The volume of trade we currently process nationally has doubled since 1994 and will double again by the year 2005. The value of that trade will rise from nearly 1 trillion dollars last year to approximately 2.5 trillion dollars in five years.

We’re currently able to inspect about 3% of the goods entering the country. With static resources, that figure will drop to 1% in the next five years. The same explosion in global trade that promises so much for our world economy also means that every extra truck, every extra traveler, every extra container means new opportunities for smugglers.

The cartels and traffickers show little sign of slowing down. They are well-equipped, well-financed, and resilient. They're smuggling drugs in smaller loads, in a wide array of conveyances -- the so-called "shot gun" approach. Loads are often kept below prosecutorial thresholds, so that those who are caught stand a good chance of being released right back into the hands of their paymasters, to return another day.

We also face a significant threat from the air. Drug trafficking organizations use all types of planes to transport contraband, from small private craft to 727s. Due to our enhanced air defenses, loads are often dropped short of the border for pick-up and transport by land.

Nearer to our coastal ports, we're seeing a trend towards smuggling by small water craft: submersibles, jet skis, zodiacs, and shark boats. More smugglers are air dropping their goods to waiting go-fast vessels and transshipping through foreign countries like Jamaica, the Bahamas and Haiti.

In the face of this blitz, we've had to take some new approaches. The use of technology has given us a major boost. In late 1997, General McCaffrey asked Customs to formulate a long-term counter drug-technology plan. We responded to that request with a five-year technology acquisition program for the southern tier of the United States. The program focuses heavily on non-intrusive technology: fixed and mobile truck x-ray systems; gamma-imaging systems for rail cars and cargo; and high energy x-ray systems for heavy palletized cargo and loaded sea containers. These devices, along with smaller, hand held technology, have succeeded in raising the number of conveyances we search, cutting our inspection times, and locating drugs in places we never could have found them before.

We've also strengthened our presence on the seas and in the skies by combining our air and marine programs into one unit. The Customs Air and Marine Interdiction Division has 114 aircraft deployed throughout the drug source and transit zones. These include long range P-3 craft with advanced radar systems capable of tracking suspect targets from deep in South America all the way to the U.S. border. We also utilize smaller, C-550 interceptor jets for close tracking and high speed chases; Black Hawk helicopters for the end-game phase of an air operation; and light enforcement helicopters for aerial and photo surveillance. On the seas, we deploy long range radar platform craft, as well as Customs high-speed interceptor boats capable of overtaking the go-fast craft favored by smugglers today.

The air and marine division has engaged in numerous joint operations with other federal and local law enforcement agencies throughout our border regions. This includes Mexico, where we've had significant success working with the government there on establishing an air presence. We now have aircraft stationed in Hermosillo and Merida, Mexico.

We've also gotten great results from a major project we undertook in September 1998 called the Border Coordination Initiative, or BCI. Echoing the theme of cooperation reflected in HIDTA, Customs and its border partners set out to rewrite the book on border enforcement. Our partners include the Immigration and Naturalization Service and now, the U.S. Coast Guard.

Under BCI, we went back to basics with a plan to pool resources, keep lines of communication open, share information, and create a seamless process at and between border ports of entry. It sounds like a simple plan. But in truth, it represented a new approach to the fragmented, "you do your job and I'll do mine" practice of the past.

As a result of these efforts, cooperation between border enforcement agencies has never been better, in particular between Customs and the INS. In addition, drug seizures were up 20% across the Southwest Border from the previous fiscal year.

Of course, we couldn't do it without the support of our HIDTA partners. HIDTA remains our most important link to the wider law enforcement community, and is responsible for some of our best cases.

Many of you are familiar with Operation El Dorado, a HIDTA money laundering initiative led by Customs and the IRS. El Dorado is made up of 190 law enforcement personnel from 24 different federal, state and local agencies. Since its inception in New York in 1992, El Dorado has been responsible for the seizure of approximately 350 million dollars, more than 950 arrests, and the disruption or dismantling of nearly 200 money laundering organizations.

Along the Arizona-Mexico border we have the border anti-narcotics network, otherwise known as "BANN". BANN is located in the remote areas of the Tohono Indian Nation, in the Organ National Park. Fifty-one full and part-time personnel, including 26 Customs agents, staff the network. In fiscal year 99, BANN disrupted four major drug smuggling networks, seized nearly 75,000 pounds of narcotics, and made 237 arrests.

Operation Alliance, a joint task force out of San Ysidro, California, presented over 2000 drug cases to the U.S. attorney and local district attorney in just the first half of fiscal year 1999.

We’re also proud members of the New Mexico border operations task force, and the West Texas HIDTA, with its outstanding track record of cooperation and success.

I could mention many others, but in the interest of time I'll sum it up by saying our HIDTA partnerships have yielded some truly outstanding results. HIDTA symbolizes what we have to gain when we focus on the broader challenge, and not just our own parochial interests.

At the same time, we should guard our success. On the whole, the growth of HIDTA is good news for law enforcement, and it's a testament to the success of the program. But we should take care to manage this growth, and spend our resources wisely. We should be wary of having our funding diluted by regions that, despite the best of intentions, might not be able to demonstrate the same need as others. We need to keep HIDTA strong and focused.

Beyond increased seizures and arrests, HIDTA has alerted our political leaders to the vital role of interdiction and investigation in the national counter-drug effort. General McCaffrey has advocated an equal emphasis on treatment and prevention and he's right. We'll never seize or arrest our way out of this crisis. America must reduce its insatiable appetite for illegal narcotics. But until that day comes, a strong and well-funded program of counter-drug enforcement is required to keep our communities out of narcotics' destructive path.

Thanks for all you've done under HIDTA to strengthen our defenses. There's a lot of great work going on out there and you deserve the credit. The Customs Service looks forward to continuing its HIDTA partnerships and building on your success.