LAREDO, Texas - A U.S. program that offers trusted trucking companies speedy passage across the border has begun attracting the sort of customers who place a premium on avoiding inspections: Mexican drug smugglers.
Trucks enrolled in the trusted trucking company program breeze through a border checkpoint using a Free and Secure Trade Lane, while others wait to enter the U.S. Most trucks enrolled in the program pause at the border for about 20 seconds before entering the United States. And nine out of 10 of them do so without anyone looking at their cargo.
But among the small fraction of trucks that are inspected, authorities have found multiple loads of contraband, including nearly 13 tons of marijuana seized in a three-week period last spring.
Some experts now question whether the program makes sense in an environment where drug traffickers are willing to do almost anything to smuggle their shipments into the U.S.
The program "just tells the bad guys who to target," said Dave McIntyre, former director of the Integrative Center for Homeland Security at Texas A&M University.
The program works like this: Participating companies agree to adopt certain security measures in exchange for fast entry into the U.S. They are required to put their employees through background checks, fence in their facilities and track their trucks.
They also must work with subcontractors that also have been certified under the program, which is run by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency.
The government keeps the list of participants secret, citing national security and trade secrets. But some of the 9,500 companies that are part of the system advertise their membership to drum up business, making them targets for smugglers, who can then threaten drivers or offer them bribes.
More than half of all U.S. imports now come from companies in the program, called the Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism, or C-TPAT. Mexican trucking companies make up only 6 percent of global membership in the system, but they account for half of its 71 security violations during the last two years.
Stephen Flynn, senior fellow for Counterterrorism and National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, said truckers do not feel safe rejecting bribes.
"The basic vulnerability for a truck driver remains the 'plata-or-plomo' dilemma," Flynn said, using Spanish shorthand for taking a bribe or a bullet.
In Laredo, the border's busiest crossing, nearly 700 trucks a day pass through the lane at the World Trade Bridge reserved for trucks that are certified by the trusted-carrier program.
Trucking companies have to electronically submit a list of each vehicle's cargo to customs officials at least 30 minutes before arriving at the bridge. Customs agents review them for risk factors that could trigger an inspection.
Customs will not reveal those factors, but people familiar with the program say potential risks are judged based partly on the factory that is sending the goods, its location and the truck's route.
Required cable locks on the trailer doors are also checked, but smugglers have been known to cut them and glue them back together or take the trailer doors off at the hinges without disturbing the locks.