ICE team uses ancient techniques to track drug smugglers

SELLS, Arizona — An hour's drive south of Phoenix, deep in the Sonoran Desert, the Tohono O'odham Reservation is about the size of Connecticut.

The land is barren, it has beautiful vistas, and it sits on the U.S.-Mexico border — which makes it the perfect cover for drug smugglers.

"This is an average dope seizure," said Immigration and Customs Enforcement Officer Kevin Carlos, kneeling in front of a dozen bales of marijuana. "Just a quick look at it, I'm guessing around 500 pounds."

The stash is found tucked into a dry creek bed, hidden by dead branches and likely brought 40 miles north of the border by horseback, Officer Carlos said. The marijuana, which weighed 521 pounds, has a street value of almost a half-million dollars, he added.

Along with the pot, ICE also found two four-wheelers parked nearby in the brush. Officer Carlos said they were likely going to be used to haul the dope out of the desert and on to Phoenix for distribution.

For those who haven't seen it, the U.S.-Mexico border in remote parts of this desert is little more than symbolic — and quite easy to breach.

Along a remote stretch that News 8 visited on the reservation, the border only consists of three strands of thick wire attached to five-foot-tall steel posts.

That barrier finally had to be erected a few years ago, locals said, to prevent people from driving through the border.

On foot, it is a two-day walk to the closest highway and seven days in the desert to the nearest interstate highway.

But the continuous flow of drugs isn't as interesting as the unique approach that ICE officers use to find them.

"I can tell you this: If I was lost in the desert, I'd want them coming after me," said Rodney Irby, the ICE Assistant Special Agent-In-Charge.

The ICE officers on the reservation are Native Americans themselves and all are expert trackers. Their small tactical patrol unit is nicknamed the Shadow Wolves.

It has grown popular over the last few decades for using tracking techniques that tribes have handed down over centuries.

"It's the only way you're going to find these guys," said ICE Officer David Scout.

Scout is trained not just to follow footprints, but also to look for disturbances in the dirt where smugglers might be sneaking a load of drugs into the United States.

"You can still see some minute details, some small diamonds," Scout said, showing a fading footprint on the desert floor, "but the outer sides are starting to wear on it, which leads me to believe it's at least a couple days old."

Smugglers also break branches and get clothing fibers snagged in the brush. Both are more clues that help Shadow Wolves like Scout track suspects through the wide open desert — and either arrest them or seize their drugs.

As Scout followed one set of tire tracks, he uncovered something other than drugs.

"I found a cell phone," he said holding it up. "So it'll be a good investigative tool." Scout figures smugglers likely dropped it, or it might have fallen out of their truck when they stopped.

Abandoned mobile phones have proven useful in the past.

ICE shared video with News 8 which was found on another mobile phone that officers seized. The short clip illustrated how ineffective those steel posts are along the border. A smuggler can be seen driving his pickup truck over the top of the border posts by using another truck as a ramp.

Once the smugglers drive into the U.S., they often travel in their trucks at night — off-road and without lights — to avoid detection.

"When these vehicles cross [the tribal lands], they won't use the gates," Scout said. Instead, a passenger pulls the barbed wire off the posts and steps on it so the truck driver to move through.

The barbs don't damage thick off-road tires.

In the last two years, tracking techniques have helped the Shadow Wolves find almost 77,000 pounds of marijuana in the desert – some stashed in creek beds, some buried, others in pickup trucks trying to traverse the reservation.

"This area's hot," Scout said. "Just a matter of time before something else comes through."

Fibers, footprints, and tire tracks tell this team a story. The Shadow Wolves' ancient tracking technique doesn't cost taxpayers anything extra to protect the border, and it successfully intercepts some of what slips through a desert that's not as desolate as it appears.

http://www.wfaa.com/news/crime/ICE-team ... 11209.html