GUARDSMEN HELPING WITH BORDER PATROL

Mention a way to get drugs or an illegal alien across the U.S.-Mexican border in a vehicle and Missouri National Guard Staff Sgt. Alvin Blumenberg probably has seen it.

There are the drug-filled spare gas tanks, tires, fenders, and dashes, and the baby seats or small children that are used to try to "throw off" the border authorities, Blumenberg said.

Blumenberg, a Cape Girardeau resident, worked from early May to early June to help interdict drugs at the southern California border town of San Ysidro north of Tijuana, Mexico. With 28 gates, San Ysidro is the largest port of entry in the United States, he said.

Blumenberg was one of 13 people from the Missouri National Guard's 1140th Engineer Battalion at Cape Girardeau who have recently aided federal authorities in finding the drugs at checkpoints along the border. They have helped federal authorities as part of a four-month operation called "Task Force Missouri."

A cooperative effort with the California National Guard, the operation also includes the construction of a road to better patrol the border area and to improve access to areas where drugs are being smuggled in, said Capt. Dwight Lusk, the battalion's administrative and training officer.

In all, he said, 23 of the battalion's members have worked as part of the task force. Six remain in California at this time. Five are working on the road, Lusk said, while the other is involved in the interdiction effort.

Lusk said California served as the pilot state in having the National Guard help in the drug interdiction effort. The effort turned out to be pretty successful, he said, so the Missouri Guard was invited to take part.

Drug interdiction is a high priority of Missouri's adjutant general, who serves as administrative head of the Guard, he said.

"The soldiers who have come back have got a lot of appreciation for the amount of drugs coming into the country and the extremes people take to get them into the country," Lusk said. "Just from seeing the pictures and talking to the soldiers coming back, they're very highly motivated in stopping drugs."

Blumenberg said his work with the task force was a learning experience in seeing the large amounts of drugs and the different ways people try to get them across the border. It was nothing, he said, to find drugs in tires or spare gas tanks.

People also hide the drugs in false truck bottoms and under vehicle seats.

"They'd strip the dash and load it," he said. "We had one lady who had 15 pounds of (marijuana) strapped between her legs."

While working with the operation, Blumenberg said, he supervised a force of eight men. The group's shift ran from midnight to 8 a.m. Border agents worked around the clock, he said. Types of drugs found included marijuana, cocaine, heroin, and steroids.

In the month he was on the job authorities seized $30 million worth of drugs, said Blumenberg. The biggest load of marijuana his shift seized, he said, came to 2,193 pounds.

"It was nothing to find marijuana with baby powder sprinkled all over it (or) baking soda or coffee to try to knock the smell off for the dogs."

The U.S. Customs Service representative in charge figured that authorities seized only 20 percent of the drugs being taken across the border, said Blumenberg. Every vehicle can't be stopped, he said. A vehicle is pulled over if authorities are suspicious of it or its occupants.

Blumenberg said 6,000 vehicles a night come through the checkpoint. He estimated about 20 of those would have drugs hidden inside. On average, he said, his shift searched 600 to 800 vehicles per night.

Ninety percent of those smuggling drugs across the border are Americans, he estimated.

He said several weapons, among them Thompson machine guns, were seized. Found also were ammunition and explosives. From a single car, authorities on the checkpoints' evening shift seized $89,000 in cash, he said.

Color photographs showed by Blumenberg pictured some of the drugs seized and the way they were hidden in vehicles. One photograph showed a disassembled Thompson machine gun stored in a briefcase.

"That Thompson machine gun we seized; we figured it was going to L.A. at the time of the riot," said Blumenberg.

Blumenberg pointed to the case of one illegal alien who tried to get across the border by hiding under the closed hood of a Ford LTD while its engine was running.

"Every once in a while he'd touch the exhaust and you'd hear him groan or do something. Sitting out there in that traffic for two or three hours at a time it's a wonder it didn't kill him."