Page 15 - Customs Today Winter1984-OCR

marijuana in a truck. The vehicle led to a stash house and from there to the fishing
boat, the "Nana II".
The Portland District has 95 employ
ees, including the Office of Investigations and the Patrol. Portland also performs the
classification and value function for the
Anchorage District. Recently, a Portland import specialist spent a week in Alaska waiting for the ice to melt at Prudhoe Bay in order to examine a $210 million seawater treatment plant, the largest single entry ever brought into the United States. The 600-foot-long, 10-story-high plant was brought in from South Korea and will be used to treat water that will be injected into the Prudhoe Bay oil reservoir to increase recovery. The duty on this plant could be as high as $14 million!
Portland boasts of its cost Effective ness. Last fiscal year, it collected $2.3 million per employee. The District pri marily processes cargo moving by ship. More than 2,000 vessels called at ports within the District with cargo destined for central Washington, Idaho and the Mid west via the Columbia and Snake Rivers.
It is a Region of extremes. It is a
Region of California.
California is so large, so populous
and so rich that it has three districts, two of which include parts of Nevada.
The San Francisco District is housed in a Federal building built the old- fashioned way: with wide marble stair ways and offices with wood paneling. Some offices have hardwood floors and furniture you now see in expensive decorator shops.
The seaport reflects the mix of vin
tage and new which is a large part of the charm of the San Francisco Bay area. On
the Oakland side of the bay, across from San Francisco, are berths and docks
equipped to unload container cargo. Im mense cranes load and unload vessels in a
marvelously mechanized way. On the San Francisco side of the bay, berths are
narrow and seem unsuited for contain erized cargo. Here, passenger ships are
more at home.
At San Francisco International Air
port, a new and expanded Customs proc
essing facility, costing $100 million, was
opened on July 18. Using a one-stop con
figuration, 800 passengers per hour can be processed.
Under the control of the San Fran cisco District is the Oakland Mail Facil
ity, the largest unit on the West Coast. The mail unit processes 25% of the inter
national mail coming into the United States. About 32% of Customs' mail rev enue is collected in Oakland. Mail technicians make significant narcotics
seizures here. One recent haul was 80
pounds of high-quality heroin from Thailand found inside two aluminum
vases.
Because the San Francisco District is
so close to the computer chip industry, located in a valley to the south called "Silicon Valley/' the Office of Investiga tions has established an office in Menlo
Park to better develop leads in connec tion with Operation EXODUS.
The district has some remnants of its former regional days. There is a 24-hour Sector Communications Center, a Liqui dation Section and a suboffice for the
Regional Counsel. The San Francisco Lab specializes in petroleum products
and, as you might imagine, oriental foods. Dr. Neal Byington, one of two
petroleum chemists in the Customs Serv ice, works in San Francisco. He can iden tify the country of origin from crude oil samples. This lab has the only scanning electron microscope in the Customs Serv ice, an impressive looking piece of equip ment which had a $100,000 price tag.
The San Diego District covers San
Diego and the California/Mexican border. Interstate Highway 5 which ends
in Blaine, Wash., at the Canadian
border, begins at San Ysidro, California, on the Mexican border. Across from the
Mexican city of Tijuana, San Ysidro is about 20 miles south of San Diego and is linked to that city by trolley car. San
Ysidro is the busiest single border cross
ing in the United States. More than 39 million people crossed there last year.
At the other side of California, bordered by the Colorado River, is the
port of Andrade. Close to Yuma, Ariz., Andrade was one of the beautification
projects of former First Lady, Mrs. Lyn don Johnson. Saint Augustine grass, fan
and date palms, bottle bushes, mesquite
trees, hedges and other plants make this small port seem like an oasis. Open from
6 a.m. to 10 p.m., the port's pace picks
up in the winter time with the arrival of visitors escaping the cold climate of the
North and East. Known as "snow
birds," the winter guests fill up available trailer spaces in the area and in close-by
Yuma.
The San Diego Air Support Branch, located at the U.S. Naval Base on Coro- nado Island just southwest of San Diego, has the responsibility for covering the West Coast from the Mexican border up to Canada. The Air Branch is currentiy involved in "Operation Sinsimilla," a marijuana eradication program in Northern California, and with the Vice
Presidential NBBIS Program.
San Diego is home for TECS, the
Customs computerized law-enforcement data base. Last year the Data Center re
sponded to 78.9 million queries.
The Los Angeles District, located on Terminal Island, 20 miles south of Los
Angeles, oversees an immense import/
export empire. Economists say that if the Los Angeles area were a nation, it would rank number 14 in the world with its
gross national product. It exceeds Australia by 3 %, India by 7 % and Mex
ico by 26%.
Prophets and seers add that in eight to 14 years, Los Angeles will exceed New
York in imports, in Customs revenues and in general commercial importance.
Basic to the district's operation is Los Angeles International Airport and the harbors of Los Angeles and Long Beach. A new $124 million international arrivals building is scheduled for comple tion in time for the 1984 Summer Olym pics. It will have 72 primary lanes and an area of 964,000 square feet. This will be the largest single Federal inspection facil ity in the country.
With 539 employees, Los Angeles is the largest district in the Region. They
produce the lion's share of revenue,
bringing in almost $1.5 billion. Various enforcement teams operating at the har bors and airport make significant nar cotic and merchandise seizures. The district has been very prominent, nation
wide, for copyright and trademark viola tion cases.
The Los Angeles Office of Investi
gations takes some of the credit for Oper ation EXODUS. Back in late 1980,
special agents began looking into the Bruchhausen case. Bruchhausen, who
still remains at large, is alleged to have
shipped a microwave receiver used by U.S. Navy reconnaissance submarines to
West Germany where it was trans
shipped to East Germany and then to Russia. Several of Bruchhausen's asso ciates have been tried and found guilty.
The Pacific Regional office is, in
fact, located in Los Angeles. There the new Regional Commissioner and his staff plan and direct operations throughout the Region. Regional Com missioner Quintin L. Villaneuva, Jr.,
says the enforcement trend is going to be towards more participation with local and
Federal agencies. Programs such as NB BIS will become the order of the day. Workload and work volume are bound to
increase. The future is ahead of us, just
beyond today. There will be no shortage of challenges or demands.
Jerome Hollander is a Public Information Offi cer in the Pacific Region.
CUSTOMS TODAY / WINTER 1984
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