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Published on 10/27/1999 All articles from this issue

Agent says 'things' still get through despite best efforts

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By Clyde Noel

Special to the Town Crier

When you fly into the San Jose Airport from a foreign country, the chances are you will meet Evan W. Bladh, the port director for the United States Customs Service, or one of his staff.

His agents will be looking for drugs, protecting intellectual property rights and checking for counterfeit goods that run from Beanie Babies to software infringement.

Speaking at the Oct. 12 Los Altos Kiwanis meeting, Bladh said, "It scares me to think of all the violations that are getting through. When it comes to cargo, everything is filtered through customs and our responsibility is unlimited. We have a top-notch canine corps that has drug dogs and money dogs. We have mobile X-ray machines and all kinds of detectors, but things still get through."

Most of the Customs Service' work is checking containers shipped in and out of the ports of San Francisco, Oakland and Bay Area airports.

There is a concentration in export examinations and outbound enforcement where agents look for weaponry, high-tech items, outbound money and stolen vehicles taken off the street and placed in containers.

"Our staff is small so we look for anything off-kilter," Bladh said. "90 percent of the drugs get past us. We can tell by the price on the street. If we do a good job the price of heroin is high. Since the price is actually going down right now, we know we are getting beat."

Bladh explained the difficulty agents have because of a recent class action suit resulting from a "pat down" search. A woman entering the country had all the indications of carrying drugs internally in her body.

The criteria included a short time out of the country, traveling from a country where she was not a citizen, carrying $1,000 in cash, Lomotil tablets in her purse and an X-ray showing foreign bodies in her stomach. The supervising inspector called for a search. When she was found innocent, she sued the U. S. Customs Service and won.

"That case threw the Customs Department in turmoil. Searches are now down ten-fold and agents have backed down from pat downs," Bladh explained. "Any passenger who goes through a search now is given an opinion card to fill out and any complaints have to be completed in 24 hours."

A new commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, was appointed and immediately streamlined the search procedure. As Customs Commissioner, Kelly directs more than 19,000 employees responsible for enforcing hundreds of laws which protect the American public, and processes more than 450 million persons entering the United States each year.

At present, the Customs Service in San Jose works from two trailers pushed together at the San Jose Airport.

Departing and incoming passengers go through the trailers and then are put on a bus and ferried to terminal A. When the new International Terminal is opened south of Terminal A in the fall of 2001, Customs will be located in the new terminal.