Customs vows to beef up inspections of seized vehicles

By ELLIOT SPAGAT
Associated Press Writer

SAN DIEGO (AP) The U.S. Customs and Border Protection bureau will beef up inspections of seized vehicles, a response to renewed questions about how thoroughly the bureau examines cars and trucks from the time it seizes them until it sells them.

The questions arose after the arrest of an American man in Mexico for possessing marijuana that had apparently been left behind in a car he bought at a Customs auction, and after the discovery of a 12-year-old Mexican girl who hid for two days in a vehicle seized at a border crossing.

Mexican authorities arrested Adrian Rodriguez of Chula Vista in July after a mechanic in Tijuana found 33 pounds of marijuana hidden inside the 1991 Volkswagen Passat he had purchased for $600 at a Customs auction in March,

On Monday, Floriberta Jimenez Torres of the Mexican state of Oaxaca was found in a 1986 Ford Aerostar that had been seized at the Port of San Ysidro on Saturday night after a 34-year-old woman was found hiding in a compartment.

The girl, who was hiding in another compartment, went unnoticed until a storage yard worker saw her in the vehicle. Authorities said she was lucky to have survived two days in the car without food or water at a time when high temperatures exceeded 90 degrees.

Under the new guidelines, dogs will search every vehicle when seized and again when put up for sale. The second inspection is aimed at detecting odors that may develop when cars are idled in parking lots. Packaging of drugs has been known to deteriorate over time.

The new steps would have kept the girl from going undetected, said Lou Samenfink, the bureau's deputy executive director for trade compliance and facilitations.

``What it told us is that we absolutely, positively need to make sure that we're thoroughly inspecting these cars,'' he said of her discovery.

Sammerfink indicated the new measures were under consideration even before this week's incident, noting that Rodriguez' arrest last month ``really brought the matter to a head.''

The bureau suspended all auctions last week while it began inspecting every vehicle in its inventory, using dogs and X-rays. There are about 5,000 vehicles, mostly in San Diego; Nogales, Ariz.; and El Paso and Laredo, Texas. Some are in lots along the Canadian border.

The inspections, scheduled to be finished early next week, have yet to yield any drugs or unusual finds, Samenfink said. No date has been set to resume the auctions.

Some of the measures are not new but none of them had been applied to every vehicle, Samenfink said. He didn't have specific numbers on how many auctioned vehicles have avoided inspections until now.

``We're tightening up and trying to hold (field supervisors) as accountable as we can,'' he said.

Under the new rules, a field supervisor must sign off on a checklist for every vehicle.

Rodriguez's attorney in Tijuana welcomed the new measures.

``It is greatly satisfying that, despite the fact that Adrian is still in jail, something is resulting from this,'' said the attorney, Jose Miguel Ramirez. ``It sets a precedent.''

(Copyright 2003 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)