Customs Drilling Rigsfor Drugs

A controversial method the U.S. Customs Service is using to catch drug smugglers on the U.S.-Mexico border shocked trucking executive Bob Thomas when he first heard about it.

“My shop foreman came out and said someone had shot the trailer,” Thomas recalled in an interview from his Dallas office at FFE Inc., a major trucking company.

In fact, drug-hunting customs agents had drilled holes into the refrigerated trailer.

Agents use drills to search the walls and ceilings of tractor-trailer rigs entering the United States for hidden compartments containing stashes of cocaine, marijuana or other prohibited substances.

The drill bits, up to a quarter-inch wide, are checked for signs of narcotics, and the holes give trained dogs a better shot at sniffing out contraband, according to customs authorities.

The holes also enable agents to stick probes and optic scopes into the walls of the trucks so they can see remote sections of the trailers where drugs might be hidden. Trucking officials say trailers are drilled with about a dozen holes when they are inspected.

While the technique has resulted in some seizures, including a ton of cocaine in a refrigerated truck here in March, trucking officials say it has also left hundreds of innocent drivers with minute holes in their trailers.

“Anytime you’ve got a $45,000 piece of equipment and somebody’s drilling holes in it, that’s bad,” Joe Smart, the branch manager for W&B Refrigeration, a trucking company in Harlingen, Texas, said Monday.

“We’ve got to try to stop the drugs, but if you pulled up in your brand new BMW and they punched holes in it, you wouldn’t be a happy camper,” Smart said.

The holes are often patched with silicone, but the substance becomes brittle over time and can allow moisture to enter, which can ruin the insulation on a refrigerated trailer, Smart said.