Police Look For Help.

[+bpratt]

If this post is in the wrong place feel free to move it. OK here we go.

 

While explaining to the local Police the other day what Geocaching

is (they thought it sounded fun) I was informed that some bad people

are using the internet and GPSs to move around supplies for making

illegal drugs. They go to certain websites (did not say what ones and

I do not want to know)and put the coordinates in as to where they have

hidden chemicals or whatever then the other guy can go and pick them

up without the two of them ever having to get together. After hearing

this I told the Officer I would make this post asking everyone to keep

an eye out even though I knew everyone already would.

Neither he nor I think it is likely that any of us will ever see

anything, but there are getting to be a lot of use Cachers out there

and it would not hurt to pass on the information so we can all be

safer and maybe help stop the bad guys.

[JohnX]

The message sounds like an Urban Myth in the making to me. Is it possible this is true? Yes. Is it something to even consider worrying about. No.

[+bpratt]

Meth is a big problem in my area so when ever I can do anything to help the Police I do what I can. I do agree that the chances of any of us running into anything are slim but the more people that know about the problem the better.

[+reveritt]

I suppose it is possible that geocachers might stumble on something like this in the woods, and we should be aware of it.

 

As for "bad guys" using the Internet to pass information, one method reportedly favored by al-Qaeda, and of potential value to other criminals, is the use of dummy e-mail accounts.

 

Rather than actually sending e-mails (which might be intercepted) to each other, these guys apparently set up an account on any of the free web-based e-mail sites. They all know the password. When A wants to pass information to B, he writes a note using the e-mail account, and saves it as a draft. B checks regularly, finds the draft message, and deletes it.

[+bpratt]

reveritt

What you are saying is more likely what these guys are doing too.

[+AuntieWeasel]

Sounds a bit of an urban myth to me, too. Drugs, material to make drugs and cash are all valuable. People who make and deal drugs are not trustworthy, and are intensely paranoid about each other. I suppose they might use GPS to hide and find their own stuff, but no way two players would ever make a chemical/cash swap by trading sets of coordinates without personal contact. That's got "burn" written all over it.

 

Now, I can picture deputies sitting around shooting the breeze and saying, "hey, you know what you could use these things for...?"

[+Robespierre]

There'd be no defense against that "draft" idea.

[+bpratt]

I got this information straight from the Police in an area overrun with Meth problems so that is why I posted it. I for one believe it but I also think it is probably more along the line of the email stuff "reveritt" mentioned.

[+Team BubbyMac]

i work for a rural sheriff's department in an area that is overrun with meth cookers. Cookers are not the smartest people in the world but they are getting slick. It would be very east for them to use there gps to hid stuff just like we do. Drug dealers are using gps phones to give to there drug mules so they can pull up where their mules are when they are transporting dope. The dealers then know when the mules have stopped for a period of time and cna start looking for the mules.

[+Faith the Aquariaqueen]

As for urban myth, well I don't know.

 

However, I haven't been doing this even a month and when I was telling friends about it, a few of them said "wow, that would be an easy way to sell drugs!"

 

Drop your money at one location, pick up at another....multi-"stashing".

 

OH well....I'm more interested in a different sig item!

[+Marcie/Eric]

As for urban myth, well I don't know.

 

However, I haven't been doing this even a month and when I was telling friends about it, a few of them said "wow, that would be an easy way to sell drugs!"

 

Drop your money at one location, pick up at another....multi-"stashing".

 

OH well....I'm more interested in a different sig item!

I like your friends. LOL.

[+Kit Fox]

Since I work in a jail, with inmates, some for drug convictions, I tend to believe the story.

 

The big drug smugglers will often stash their dope in areas for later pick-up. A GPS would be a great tool for them to use in order to recover the stash. Often times drugs can be sank, and the coordinates marked for the retrieval diver.

 

Before you discount the methods of the drug cartels, keep mind Columbian drug agents discovered a submarine being built to ferry drugs in Sept of 2000

 

Why Drug Cops Can't Win

 

Despite the best efforts by the U.S. government, illegal narcotics fly, seep, skip, run, drive, dig and hike from South America to North America every day.

 

They come via trucks and cars; via plane and boat; via rail track and tunnel; via coyote and mule; they come any way you can imagine – and more than a few you cannot. If there is a way to get dope across the border, rest assured, it's coming across.

 

And there's always a way.

 

In my newly published book, "Bad Trip: How the War Against Drugs is Destroying America," the chapter on smuggling is one of the longest. In fact, keeping it a manageable length was a challenge because smuggling is really about one of the biggest and broadest subjects any author can cover – human ingenuity. Says 1970's narcotrafficker Zachary Swan, there are "a million ways." And he's underestimating.

 

Here are just a few specific examples and tactics from recent years:

 

 

Covertly building a submarine capable of hauling 10 tons of cocaine to carry it from Colombia to the U.S.

 

Using time-released buoys and GPS trackers to sync drug shipments on the open sea.

 

Combining cocaine with plastic resin and producing functioning, commercial goods from which the drug can be chemically extracted once across the border.

 

Disguising stashes of cocaine in hollowed-out passion fruit or in plastic plantains; hiding psilocybin mushrooms in chocolates.

 

Digging a 1,200-foot tunnel, complete with ventilation ducts and electric lights to take marijuana and cocaine from a home in Mexico to another in California.

 

Dropping drugs in the uninhabited desert by plane and using GPS locaters on the ground to find and bring them across the poorly manned border.

 

Training – no lie here, folks – pigeons to fly packets of dope across the border.

 

Swan used to buy cocaine in Colombia and then tightly compress it into wooden souvenirs – like rolling pins, carved tribal heads, and statuettes of the Madonna (who would suspect Mary?) – which he would easily smuggle into the United States. He never got busted with a load.

 

Successes from early smugglers like Swan encouraged others to give it a try. Some did well, others did not. But the border coke rush of the late 1970s and early 1980s caused the feds to clamp down tight and try to stop the illegal flow. It didn't really work.

 

As I explain in "Bad Trip," interdiction efforts fail for one basic reason: Smugglers are entrepreneurs; border agents are bureaucrats. It's one of those stubborn facts of economics, but entrepreneurs always beat bureaucrats because they have the incentive and competitive edge.

 

Former DEA agent Robert Stutman makes this clear, joking in an interview for the PBS Frontline show "Drug Wars":

 

You build a 12-foot wall around the United States, and the old joke goes, it will take the dope peddlers 60 seconds to realize that a 13-foot ladder gets over a 12-foot wall. And then what do you do? Build a 13-foot wall?

 

Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Ariz., know the frustration in that sentiment.

 

"I don't know how to stop the drug traffic, and I've been in it for 38 years," the sheriff, widely touted as the toughest cop in the nation, told Harper's in 2001. "I think if I knew, I'd be the president. I can give you what's been said 50 years ago. ... It's the same thing we're saying today – tough law enforcement, prevention, rehabilitation ... Nothing's changed. The stuff coming across the border that we catch? Ten percent. Fifty years ago, 10 percent. Today, 10 percent. Nothing's changed ... I don't know how to solve the problem. Don't ask me."

 

Whatever police do to clamp down, smugglers maneuver around. Some get caught while others make the appropriate adjustments to their tactics, and some are just lousy smugglers to begin with. But consistently nabbing 10 percent is hardly something to brag about.

 

Do drug warriors honestly wake up in the morning, look in the mirror and get a rush of pride that only 90 percent of illegal narcotics are getting through thanks to them? Sadly – and adding an entirely new dimension to the word "pathetic" – yes, they do.

 

As for the rest of us, we need something different. The war on drugs is spending taxpayer money by the billions and tossing it down a thousand rat holes. It's perfectly idiotic to continue trying to interdict narcotics when they so easily make their way across. Think of it this way: The 10 percent figure is more like a tax for smugglers than anything resembling a deterrent. In total numbers, it hardly reflects anything close to victory.

 

If Social Security only paid 10 percent of its recipients, we'd scream for reform. If the government only fed and clothed 10 percent of the Armed Services, we'd bellow for change. If taxpayers only received 10 percent of promised cuts, we'd unelect the politicians who failed to deliver and throw the bastards out.

 

It's time we started thinking the same way about the drug war. There are better ways of handling narcotics than we are currently being offered by the drug-war bureaucrats.

[+Rick618]

There was a story I read or maybe heard on the radio...memory needs an upgrade! Anyway. the idea was that some Canadian pot growers were selling to US. They would receive payment then hike across the border to leave the stash. The buyer would get the coordinates and there would be no face to face between the two.

 

Along land borders, smugglers typically transport drugs by commercial, private, and rental vehicles; snowmobiles; and all-terrain vehicles. They also walk across the border carrying drugs in backpacks. Intelligence reports indicate that drug smugglers increasingly are using night-vision optics and Global Positioning System (GPS) equipment to navigate in remote areas. Drug shipments are secreted in duffel bags or luggage and in hidden compartments of commercial and private vehicles, or they are commingled with legitimate cargo in commercial vehicles crossing the border.

 

120+ pages from 2003 govt report, page 26 is where the above came from.

 

http://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/pdf-files/MarAvail.pdf

[+Renegade Knight]

If it helps, then great we should report things.

 

While I'm sure Kit Fox has some great points I see it like the war on terror. It's not going to be won via the military, but you can't not fight. You have to also be solving the problam via other means though I don't know that that is.

 

While we may not be able to stop drugs via a war on drugs, we can't not fight it, and hopefully we are working on other means to win. The war on drugs is cheap compaired to the social cost of a nation on drugs.

[+AuntieWeasel]

While we may not be able to stop drugs via a war on drugs, we can't not fight it, and hopefully we are working on other means to win.  The war on drugs is cheap compaired to the social cost of a nation on drugs.

Well, we're wandering pretty far afield for he Geocaching Topics section, but I'm not persuaded that law deters many people from adopting bad habits. We certainly wouldn't rise up as a nation and develop a drug habit if the laws went away. Law isn't the thing that stands between me and an addiction.

 

Remember, it was all legal when my grandmother was a lass...you could go to your local chemist and order an ounce of smack with a cocaine chaser. There were addiction problems as a result, but much of that was due to patent medicines whose ingredients were both powerful and secret. They were taking stuff and didn't know what it was.

 

I'm for accurate labeling, but prohibition just inflates prices and builds crime dynasties.

[+GixxerUT]

It's time we started thinking the same way about the drug war. There are better ways of handling narcotics than we are currently being offered by the drug-war bureaucrats.

yeah, stop warring, and LEGALIZE

 

The war on drugs is cheap compaired to the social cost of a nation on drugs.

 

we already have a nation on alcohol (which is also a mind altering substance), and caffeine, and prozac, and lithium, and adderol, and welbutrin, and lortab

 

what's the deal with people telling others which drug is "ok" for them, while they are HIGH in their own way

 

we should stop wasting money on the war on drugs, and spend it on abuse prevention

use is fine, abuse is the problem

and abuse isn't just about cocaine and heroin and meth

[+reveritt]

...

 

I'm for accurate labeling, but prohibition just inflates prices and builds crime dynasties.

I agree. Whatever the intent of a law may be, if it is not practical, then it is not a good law. That's why I look askance on efforts for more gun control. It's not that I am philosophically opposed to it, but gun control--at the level that some people envision it--will simply never work.

 

You should be careful, though, Auntie--with opinions like that, you're in danger of being mistaken for a liberal.

 

As for chemicals stashed in the woods, no matter what the neture of the transaction, it makes sense to be aware of the potential, to use your trusty GPSr to pinpoint the location of anything suspicious, and to pass the information on to the local peace officers.

[+TheAlabamaRambler]

Somebody might hide their drugs and then call someone on a telephone, tell them where to go to get them! This makes telephones very dangerous and a potential tool of narco-terrorists.

 

Any device or method where you can communicate with someone and I don't know about it is a potential threat to me, so I gotta wipe them all out to be safe.

 

Ban telephones, mail, pony express, writing, language - you got no idea how hard it is to tell someone where you hid something if there is no common form of communication!

 

Banning all forms of communication will not end terrorism and the spread of drugs, but it will slow it down a bit.

 

I'd invite all geocachers to join my Jihad Against Communications, but after it starts we'd have no way to communicate, making concerted action somewhat difficult.

[+Joypa]

Reading this thread, I am reminded that any technology can be used for good or for ill. A GPSr is no exception. Laws get made based on the behavior of those who choose to behave badly and the rest of us are stuck with the results. I guess this could lead to a ban on GPSr units. I sure hope not. The best any of us can do is be aware of these things and help wherever we can.

[+treasure_hunter]

Anything is possible, half the time the crooks know more than our authorities they are more technological advanced then our Government, I guess that it could eventually happen if it hasnt already. Its scarey to think about it.

[+miles58]

Believe it or don't believe it.

 

It's going on all around you. I have notified the local sherrif on three occasions after having found the stuff.

 

If you find a strange looking package that you know dadgum good and well isn't the cache, you are well advised not to mess with it. It may be even more dangerous to you if it's a used lab than new supplies.

[+Milbank]

Can see it now...

 

GeoDrugs is a get rich quick adventure game for gps users. Participating in a drug hunt is a good way to take advantage of the wonderful features and capability of a gps unit and the internet. The basic idea is to have individuals and organizations set up drug caches all over the world and share the locations of these drug caches on the internet. GPS users can then use the location coordinates to find the drugs.

Edited June 12, 2005 by Milbank

[+TheAlabamaRambler]

OT, but this thread reminds me of the 14 months I spent working in Guatemala.

 

Drugs were everywhere and cheap - so much so that bandits would leave a kilo brick in the road; when some dumba** tourist stopped to pick it up they'd come out of hiding and rob him.

 

That kilo was worth less than the radios, watches and cash to be gotten.

 

Move that kilo a few hundred miles north and its value multiplied exponentially!

 

I have always known, not feared but known with a dread certainty in my heart that if I commit a crime my sorry self would get caught immediately, so I am never tempted, but I did drive my Impala from Birmingham to Central America numerous times, and on five seperate occassions did so without ever being asked to open my trunk at a border crossing!

 

I wonder if 9/11 changed that? I would almost bet I could do the same thing again!

Edited June 12, 2005 by TheAlabamaRambler

[+LaPaglia]

Since I work in a jail, with inmates, some for drug convictions, I tend to believe the story.

 

The big drug smugglers will often stash their dope in areas for later pick-up. A GPS would be a great tool for them to use in order to recover the stash. Often times drugs can be sank, and the coordinates marked for the retrieval diver.

 

Before you discount the methods of the drug cartels, keep mind Columbian drug agents discovered a submarine being built to ferry drugs in Sept of 2000

 

Why Drug Cops Can't Win

 

Despite the best efforts by the U.S. government, illegal narcotics fly, seep, skip, run, drive, dig and hike from South America to North America every day.

 

They come via trucks and cars; via plane and boat; via rail track and tunnel; via coyote and mule; they come any way you can imagine – and more than a few you cannot. If there is a way to get dope across the border, rest assured, it's coming across.

 

And there's always a way.

 

In my newly published book, "Bad Trip: How the War Against Drugs is Destroying America," the chapter on smuggling is one of the longest. In fact, keeping it a manageable length was a challenge because smuggling is really about one of the biggest and broadest subjects any author can cover – human ingenuity. Says 1970's narcotrafficker Zachary Swan, there are "a million ways." And he's underestimating.

 

Here are just a few specific examples and tactics from recent years:

 

 

Covertly building a submarine capable of hauling 10 tons of cocaine to carry it from Colombia to the U.S.

 

Using time-released buoys and GPS trackers to sync drug shipments on the open sea.

 

Combining cocaine with plastic resin and producing functioning, commercial goods from which the drug can be chemically extracted once across the border.

 

Disguising stashes of cocaine in hollowed-out passion fruit or in plastic plantains; hiding psilocybin mushrooms in chocolates.

 

Digging a 1,200-foot tunnel, complete with ventilation ducts and electric lights to take marijuana and cocaine from a home in Mexico to another in California.

 

Dropping drugs in the uninhabited desert by plane and using GPS locaters on the ground to find and bring them across the poorly manned border.

 

Training – no lie here, folks – pigeons to fly packets of dope across the border.

 

Swan used to buy cocaine in Colombia and then tightly compress it into wooden souvenirs – like rolling pins, carved tribal heads, and statuettes of the Madonna (who would suspect Mary?) – which he would easily smuggle into the United States. He never got busted with a load.

 

Successes from early smugglers like Swan encouraged others to give it a try. Some did well, others did not. But the border coke rush of the late 1970s and early 1980s caused the feds to clamp down tight and try to stop the illegal flow. It didn't really work.

 

As I explain in "Bad Trip," interdiction efforts fail for one basic reason: Smugglers are entrepreneurs; border agents are bureaucrats. It's one of those stubborn facts of economics, but entrepreneurs always beat bureaucrats because they have the incentive and competitive edge.

 

Former DEA agent Robert Stutman makes this clear, joking in an interview for the PBS Frontline show "Drug Wars":

 

You build a 12-foot wall around the United States, and the old joke goes, it will take the dope peddlers 60 seconds to realize that a 13-foot ladder gets over a 12-foot wall. And then what do you do? Build a 13-foot wall?

 

Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Ariz., know the frustration in that sentiment.

 

"I don't know how to stop the drug traffic, and I've been in it for 38 years," the sheriff, widely touted as the toughest cop in the nation, told Harper's in 2001. "I think if I knew, I'd be the president. I can give you what's been said 50 years ago. ... It's the same thing we're saying today – tough law enforcement, prevention, rehabilitation ... Nothing's changed. The stuff coming across the border that we catch? Ten percent. Fifty years ago, 10 percent. Today, 10 percent. Nothing's changed ... I don't know how to solve the problem. Don't ask me."

 

Whatever police do to clamp down, smugglers maneuver around. Some get caught while others make the appropriate adjustments to their tactics, and some are just lousy smugglers to begin with. But consistently nabbing 10 percent is hardly something to brag about.

 

Do drug warriors honestly wake up in the morning, look in the mirror and get a rush of pride that only 90 percent of illegal narcotics are getting through thanks to them? Sadly – and adding an entirely new dimension to the word "pathetic" – yes, they do.

 

As for the rest of us, we need something different. The war on drugs is spending taxpayer money by the billions and tossing it down a thousand rat holes. It's perfectly idiotic to continue trying to interdict narcotics when they so easily make their way across. Think of it this way: The 10 percent figure is more like a tax for smugglers than anything resembling a deterrent. In total numbers, it hardly reflects anything close to victory.

 

If Social Security only paid 10 percent of its recipients, we'd scream for reform. If the government only fed and clothed 10 percent of the Armed Services, we'd bellow for change. If taxpayers only received 10 percent of promised cuts, we'd unelect the politicians who failed to deliver and throw the bastards out.

 

It's time we started thinking the same way about the drug war. There are better ways of handling narcotics than we are currently being offered by the drug-war bureaucrats.

OK it was the 60's so Im not sure if I remember but I think I had these at a party once.

hiding psilocybin mushrooms in chocolates.

 

I'm not sure but I think they were good.