The ingenuity with which smugglers devise secret compartments within motor vehicles to smuggle narcotics into the United States is without bounds. Over the years, Customs inspectors have developed highly refined methods for and a wealth of experience in locating such hidden compartments. This highly specialized experience is imbued in the Compartment Training course taught at San Ysidro. The busy port has become a highly regarded and well known resource for this unique training, which U.S. Customs offers to federal, state and local law enforcement agencies throughout California, and increasingly, the nation. Specifically, the training focuses on types of compartments, locations within vehicles, and materials used to construct hidden areas for the smuggling of narcotics, money and other contraband across the border and subsequently into Southern California and throughout the United States.
Instruction is composed of a combination of class room presentations and actual hands-on experience.
Typically, a trainee officer is paired with an experienced Customs Inspector doing actual primary inspections or pre-primary roving to illustrate in a practical sense what was presented in the classroom environment. The result of the training, presented by U. S. Customs at no cost to the attending agencies, has been advantageous to all parties concerned. Customs benefits by an increased understanding of its unique mission by the local law enforcement community. The long lasting effect of enhanced and open communication between Customs officers and participating police officers and the sharing crucial information and resources now and in the future is significant. They progressed from knowing little about compartments in vehicles to being able to relate what was learned at Customs and to apply it to their own traffic environment, resulting in numerous narcotic interdictions on the California highways.