Port Security Seals Easy to Break, Hard to Track

By Tim Mcglone, The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk, Va.

Jan. 31–NORFOLK — Martin Delgado and his gang of drug smugglers for years easily breached the security seals on cargo containers, smuggling massive amounts of cocaine into U.S. seaports.

Although security at the nation’s ports has improved in the past five years, homeland security experts still ponder a tough question: If drugs are still smuggled through ports by the thousands of pounds each year, what’s to stop a terrorist from slipping a radiological “dirty” bomb into a container?

The problem is that “the bolt seals are easily defeated and you don’t know it happened,” said Barry Wilkins, vice president for homeland security for Pinkerton Consulting and Investigations Inc. in Arlington.

“The bolt seals that are required today do not keep the bad guys out of containers,” he said. “It’s probably easy right now to put something into a container.”

Those huge, rectangular box containers arrive at Norfolk and other U.S. ports stacked to the sky on top of cargo vessels. They come from China, Europe, South America, the Middle East — hundreds of ports around the globe. The U.S. government has agreements with about 50 ports to ensure the integrity of cargo that leaves those facilities.

Panama, where Delgado and others managed to slip drugs into containers during ship transfers, is not yet on that list. According to indictments unsealed in federal court Monday and other court records, Delgado and his associates were able to break the container seals, place the drugs inside and secure the doors with a new seal.

Seals contain a security number that is supposed to match numbers on ship records. Authorities here were discovering that the seal numbers on containers with drugs inside did not match the records.

Delgado and co-conspirator Omar Petter have pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to drug distribution charges and are awaiting sentencing. Federal authorities this week announced the arrests of seven others charged in the ongoing investigation into drug smuggling at the ports of Hampton Roads and Charleston, S.C.

Officials in Norfolk point out that the case, while the largest ever uncovered involving port drug smuggling, with more than 275 pounds of drugs seized, still pales compared to cases at ports in Miami.

Over the past two years, authorities seized about 15,000 pounds of narcotics at Miami-area ports, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Drug seizures in that time at ports in the mid-Atlantic region combined, including Norfolk and Savannah, Ga., totaled just less than 900 pounds.

Customs and immigration authorities said they have no way of knowing what quantity of drugs actually made it past security at Norfolk International Terminals and Portsmouth Marine Terminal, where federal officials say Delgado enlisted longshoremen and truck drivers to get the drugs out .

“I hope there is no more coming in,” said Mike Netherland, local resident agent in charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which headed the investigation.

“The reality is, we are the third-largest port on the East Coast,” he said. “It pays for us to be vigilant.”

Security experts have warned that terrorists have considered using a container to smuggle a weapon of mass destruction into the United States — even through a trustworthy shipping company, according to a report by

the Congressional Research Service.

“Drug smugglers have been known to employ this strategy to disguise their contraband in otherwise legitimate cargo,” the report says.

Ed Merkle, director of port security and emergency operations for the Virginia Port Authority, said $22 million has been invested in port security here since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The authority owns the Norfolk and Portsmouth terminals.

Cameras have been installed, fences erected, the police force beefed up. Radiation detectors monitor each crate for “dirty” bombs or other atomic matter. And a new ID system will be in place shortly.

But issues remain over the seals that are designed to ensure that the cargo container doors have not been breached.

Merkle said that although 100 percent of container seals are inspected to ensure they are intact, it’s difficult to ensure that a seal has not been tampered with .

Port security authorities have yet to establish a 100 percent check that the numbers on seals match numbers on ship records.

“The system today is not intelligent enough to say what the seal number is,” Merkle said.

“It’s very difficult to ensure what the last seal was. That’s the next step. But that’s a very challenging problem.

Wilkins, of Pinkerton, suggested that shipping companies and ports move toward a higher-security bolt seal that is not as easily tampered with as well as a device that uses radio frequencies that can tell when a container has been breached.

Pinkerton has managed

$70 million in security grants for ports in New York and New Jersey, Seattle, and Los Angeles and Long Beach.

“It would be much harder to get access to the containers,” he said.

The Virginia Port Authority has a radio frequency security system that checks containers as they enter and leave the port. Plans call for installing sensors that record any time a container door has been opened, as Wilkins recommended.

Still, customs has made great strides in the security measures instituted so far, Wilkins said.

“You put all those programs collectively together,” he said, “and we really have put in a significant system of deterrence.”

— Reach Tim McGlone at (757) 446-2343 or tim.mcglone@pilotonline.com.

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Copyright (c) 2007, The Virginian-Pilot, Norfolk, Va.

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.

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