TIMELINE: Heroin Pipeline to Pittsburgh

3:20 p.m. -Landed in San Antonio, Texas and headed south for the 2 hour trip to Laredo.  Looking forward to hearing what the DEA has to tell us about heroin getting into the country, and how it gets to Pittsburgh.

9:30 a.m. - We are about to talk to DEA Assistant Agent in Charge James Reed about the efforts to stop heroin from coming in at the border.  This is where the heroin that comes to Pittsburgh gets in the country.

9:50 a.m.

- Just saw a fire extinguisher, car jack and car battery where DEA found heroin at the border.  DEA agent Reed told me smugglers sometimes fill these containers, like the fire entinguisher, with just enough real chemicals to try to hide the drugs. %

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9:55 a.m.  - Agent Reed says the saying is the Mexican cartels control heroin in this country "from the farm to the arm."

10:15 a.m. 

- On our way down I-35 to the Port of Laredo.  I-35 is known as the Heroin Highway, because drugs that do make it across the border go right up I-35 and onto other major interstates like I-20 and I-65 headed to major cities, where it will be cut down and sold. %

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10:30 a.m.  - Port of Laredo is impressive.  15,000 cars and trucks come through this checkpoint every day.

11 INVESTIGATIONS:

• RAW: Texas border checkpoint
• VIDEO: Pennsylvania Heroin Highway
• PHOTOS: Heroin Pipeline to Pittsburgh
• VIDEO: Heroin hiding spots
• PHOTOS: Heroin epidemic making its way into Pittsburgh

10:45 a.m. - Customs and Border patrol uses license plate readers, dogs and mirrors under the cars and to see if anything is suspicious.  If it is, they make the driver go to a secondary checkpoint where the car is searched more thoroughly.  There's another checkpoint that looks sort of like a gas pump lane.  Dogs and agents are going all through cars and there.  Very active scene.  Very cool to watch.

11:30 

a.m.

- Port of Laredo Director Gregory Alvarez just showed us a  huge tire rim where smugglers tried to bring heroin across the border.  Wow.  They found $2.5 million worth of drugs hidden in this tire! %

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11:45 a.m. - Just watching these Customs and Border Patrol dogs doing their thing.  Most, if not all, are Belgian Malanois and are good looking dogs.

1:30 p.m.  - The DEA now is taking us about 20 minutes away to the World Trade Bridge.  This is the checkpoint for trucks.  About 6500 trucks come through the area every day.

2:15 p.m.  - Agents and dogs do the same kind of searches here - but they have to look through these big rigs.  Agents tell me in some cases where drugs were found in a tractor trailer, the driver didn't even know he had them.  He just agreed to drive a shipment of "something" across the border.

2:30

p.m. 

- If the dogs hit on a truck here, this really cool mobile x-ray drives over them.  This technology is pretty cool. It's like a huge bar hanging off the side of a big truck that just goes right over the top of the rig.  If agents are suspicious after the x-ray, they'll send the trucks into a building for a more thorough high energy x-ray scan.  Agents say they have found drugs in a truck's engine block, and in a shipment of toner cartridges. %

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3:45 p.m.  - Leaving the Port of Laredo, and about to hit the next checkpoint 29 miles from the port. All cars and trucks - even if they're not coming from Mexico - are stopped and checked here a second time.

4:15 p.m.  - We're at the checkpoint.  Agents are asking us questions like where we were, where we are going, our citizenship, etc.  The entire time the agent is asking questions, a dog is walking around our rental car, sniffing and looking for drugs.

5:30 p.m.  - Back at the hotel now.  What a fascinating day.  It really is an impressive operation at the port.  Amazing to think how innovative the smugglers and agents are - one to bring drugs in, the other to stop them.  It really is mind boggling how so many drugs do manage to make it past all those searches and scans. It's sad.  And those drugs hit the major highways - a lot of them go to the East Coast - and eventually to Western Pennsylvania.

8:00 a.m. - Up early leaving Laredo, headed back to the airport in San Antonio.  We'll have to go through that secondary checkpoint again.  Maybe we'll try to talk to some folks.

8:45 a.m.  - Got a chance to talk to some people who say they're been stopped and searched at this checkpoint several times.  Both men I talked to were Mexican.  They said it's annoying to get stopped so much, but they seemed to just accept that it's something that happens.  We got asked all the same questions - citizenship, where we are going, etc.  Getting back in the car now.  Goodbye Texas.  What an eye-opening trip.  Can't wait to bring you the story.

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