Drug lords seizing people-smuggling routes

Official says practice isn't new to Yuma sector

FROM STAFF AND AP REPORTS

April 30, 2007 - 10:55PM

SASABE, Mexico — Mexican drug lords are taking over the business of smuggling migrants into the United States, using them as human decoys to divert authorities from billions of dollars in cocaine shipments across the same border.

But the practice is not new to the Yuma sector, according to local U.S. Border Patrol spokesman Lloyd Easterling.

Easterling said local agents have "long seen" drug smugglers "put out illegal aliens ahead" and follow with their attempts to transfer drugs into the U.S.

"That is not anything that is new to us," he said.

U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials told The Associated Press that drug traffickers, in response to a U.S. border crackdown, have seized control of the routes they once shared with human smugglers and in the process are transforming themselves into more diversified crime syndicates.