DRUG DEALERS EXPORT BILLIONS OF DOLLARS TO EVADE LAWS ON CURRENCY REPORTING - Wall Street Journal 4/7/94 Washington - Drug smugglers are evading U.S. currency-reporting laws by shipping billions of dollars out of the country, according to a report released by the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. One of the most reliable methods used by the smugglers, according to the report, is the U.S. mail. Over 25 criminal organizations have been found mailing cash through a single, unidentified East Cost airpor. U.S. Customs officials have been wrangling with the U.S. Postal Service for almost two years on ways to get at the money by changing the law so outgoing packages can be randomly inspected. But the issue remains unresolved. [...] ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ The report states that a recent, more agressive search experiment by Customs, using dogs trained to sniff cash and other methods, more than ^^^^^^^^^^^^^ doubled the amount of cash seized during a five month period. [...] "At the very least, the report's findings suggest it is time for all law-enforecement agencies to work together to plan and execute a coordinated, long-range approach to address the money-laundering problem," concluded Sen. Nunn. The report was prepared for his subcommittee by the General Accounting Office. --------------------------------------------------------------------- (1) I don't need to comment on the trend toward random monitoring of all activities of all citizen-units. (2) Re. "other methods" Has anybody tried gamma or neutron activation analysis of currency? bdolan@well.sf.ca.us