SEA LANES CROWDED WITH DRUG-SMUGGLING BOATS

MIAMI -- Cut off from traditional air routes, South American drug traffickers are now shipping more cocaine and heroin by sea into Central America and then overland in trucks, cars and backpacks to the United States, the U.S.  anti-drugs chief said.

Gen.  Barry McCaffrey, head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, said efforts to combat narcotics smuggling had largely shut down drug flights into Mexico, forcing traffickers to use small boats in sea lanes along the Pacific and Caribbean coasts.

"The principal drug smuggling threat to America is now noncommercial maritime ( smuggling ) in the eastern Pacific and the western Caribbean," McCaffrey said after meeting with top security officials from Latin America and the Caribbean.

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