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Sunday, June 5, 2005

Stash house seizures surge in El Paso

Daniel Borunda
El Paso Times

An ocean of homes covering El Paso's eastern edges could be residential neighborhoods anywhere, with children riding bicycles, joggers and all the other comforts of suburbia.

But El Paso has another side. Its contraband side. Its narcotraficante side. The side where some of those homes are mini-warehouses for a continuous flow of marijuana and cocaine smuggled to markets in northern American cities.

Stash houses are as common in El Paso as sunshine and not anywhere more so than in the newer neighborhoods east of Lee Treviño Drive.

The far East Side was the site of the most stash house seizures last year by the West Texas Stash House Unit, according to an El Paso Times review of seizures made by the unit during record-breaking 2004.

"It's a big problem. It's citywide and countywide," said police Sgt. Kyle Summers, who is part of the unit made up of police, El Paso County sheriff's deputies, and Drug Enforcement Administration and FBI agents.

The unit seized 53,709 pounds of marijuana in 2004, compared with 21,286 pounds in 2003, according to El Paso police statistics. Also seized were 1,123 pounds of cocaine in 2004, up from 28 pounds in 2003. Cash seizures rose to $497,103, compared with $94,217 in 2003.

"I don't know if it's an increase in the amount of narcotics" coming across the border, said Summers, who was also the Police Department's Supervisor of the Year for 2004. "Mainly, I think the guys in the unit are working hard out there."

The unit made an average of eight seizures a month throughout El Paso, the Horizon City area and Socorro, Texas. The figures do not include seizures by the Border Patrol or other agencies.

Among the 105 drug stashes discovered by the unit were:

95 pounds of cocaine hidden in an 18-year-old man's bedroom closet in a home in the 3300 block of Tularosa in Central El Paso.

3,444 pounds of marijuana found in an 18-wheeler parked in the 11300 block of Pellicano on the East Side.

6,377 pounds of marijuana, the largest single pot seizure, found in a house in the 2200 block of Tierra de Oro on the far East Side.

1,008 pounds of marijuana seized in the 7200 block of Mohair in the Northeast.

Central El Paso had 26 seizures and the Lower Valley had 21, but both included almost a dozen cases handed off by federal agencies at the international bridges.

The most stash house seizures -- 23 -- were made on the far East Side, east of Lee Treviño Drive, where the large population and availability of homes give drug traffickers more access, narcotics investigators said.

The occupants of the stash houses vary, investigators said.

"In a lot of (the stash houses), nobody's living there in the house. And we got them where there are families living in the house with kids," Summers said. "Typically, they are all rental homes so they can move around quicker. They can move, if they need to, every six months, so they aren't tied down to any one location. It makes our job more difficult, and they don't have to worry about the house being seized."

Firearms are rarely found in the homes, Summers said. The occupants usually try to avoid contact with neighbors.

There were also busts in surrounding communities -- three seizures, including 2 tons of marijuana at one site, in the Horizon City area and nine seizures in Socorro -- data showed.

"It's hard to put a grade on how big of a problem it is," Socorro Police Chief Klaus Mansion said. "One (stash house) is a problem. It's something we don't want in our community. And unfortunately, it's there. ... It's not something indicative of the city of Socorro or El Paso. It's a national thing."

The El Paso-Juárez area is a major drug trafficking hub, from where shipments are sent to the Midwest, the South and the East Coast.

"Many drug trafficking organizations attempt to set up stash houses in El Paso because of its close proximity to the Mexico border," according to a 2004 profile of El Paso by the Office of Drug Control Policy. "Drugs are temporarily stored at these houses for the purposes of repackaging and to facilitate distribution to other cities throughout the United States."

Narcotics officers said neighbors can help look out for suspicious activity. Drug smugglers prefer houses with attached garages. Often strange vehicles arrive at odd hours, and many of the homes have unkempt yards and are sparsely furnished.

Residential concerns about stash houses have increased over the years, said Mary Sanders, a 15-year veteran of Neighborhood Watch programs.

"It used to be people breaking into homes, petty thefts. Now it's watching empty houses. When new people move in, you watch to see what happens," said Sanders, of Northeast El Paso.

Last month, Sanders' worries increased when she and her husband were returning home after going out for breakfast, she said.

"When we were coming home, we came down Gschwind and there were firetrucks, police cars and officers in black with hoods. I said, 'It must be stash house,' " Sanders said. The house had a methamphetamine lab.

Daniel Borunda may be reached at dborunda@elpasotimes.com; 546-6102.