Opinion ID: 500372
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Sharing with the Smugglers Information in the TEC

Text: 9 Computer and Other Law Enforcement Intelligence 10 Fink and Varca used three ships to transport the marijuana from Colombia to New Orleans: the MACVIE, the BLUE STAR, and the ISLAND VENTURER. At Edwards' request, Kinney ran the names of these three ships through the TEC computer. He told Edwards that both the BLUE STAR and the ISLAND VENTURER were on the Customs hot list. With this information, Fink and Varca used the BLUE STAR to make the first leg of the trip from Colombia to a point near Jamaica where the crews transferred the marijuana to the MACVIE. As the vessels neared New Orleans, the BLUE STAR and the ISLAND VENTURER acted as decoys while the MACVIE steamed toward the unloading site. 11 Appellants also diverted at least one Customs agent away from the warehouse in Dulac where the trucks waited to receive the marijuana. 12 On August 18, the FBI agents working undercover as truck drivers took the U-haul trucks to the Dulac warehouse to await the arrival of the marijuana. On the following day, a Customs agent received a tip from the local sheriff's office that three U-haul trucks were at the deserted warehouse in Dulac. When this information was transmitted to appellants, Kinney telephoned Edwards and told him that all hell had broken loose and that the State Police had seen us go in that night or early that morning, ... and that it was imperative to get all the vehicles out of the warehouse, but I [Edwards] was not to go back under any circumstances. Deerman ordered surveillance of the trucks and directed the surveilling agents to obtain the names of the truck drivers from hotel desk clerks where they were directed to register as well as any telephone numbers the drivers might dial. Deerman eventually passed all of this information along to Edwards. 13 The FBI ultimately realized that someone was leaking information to the smugglers, and on August 20 the agents arrested a number of the participants in the smuggling scheme, including Fink. The United States Coast Guard seized the marijuana in the Gulf of Mexico, where it was being transferred from the MACVIE to shrimp boats for transportation to the Dulac warehouse. Fink had Kinney's phone numbers with him at the time of his arrest, and when the agents searched Deerman's office they found his notes of locations and phone numbers of the three truck drivers/FBI agents and a blueprint of the Dulac warehouse.