Pity Those Who Take Pot Luck

Three late bulletins from the grass roots:

&182; At 1 a.m. on a blustery near-zero night last week, 25 law officers hiding in hip-high brush watched silently as a huge DC-6 cargo plane dropped low over Highway 611, rolled down a landing strip of a tiny Pennsylvania airport and lumbered to a stop at runway's end. For almost an hour, while the law shivered under blankets only yards away, the plane sat motionless; the only sound was the static of radio chatter emanating from people who watched from other vantage points near by. Then three rented vans, a Mercedes sedan, a Chevrolet station wagon and a Ford van pulled up to the plane, and the unloading of burlap bales of highly prized Colombian marijuana began. Two hours later, with half the plane's cargo removed, the police charged from the bushes, acting so quickly that they captured without a struggle all the handlers, aircraft personnel and two lookouts, a total of eleven men.

Thus ended a dramatic stake-out at the Mount Pocono airfield that involved U.S. customs and border-patrol agents. Federal Drug Enforcement officials and Pennsylvania state police. The cops' sporadic watch had begun last month, following a tip that a mysterious chartered plane might land somewhere in Pennsylvania with illegal goods.

Then, a few hours before its arrival, the police got word that a U.S. customs pursuit plane with sophisticated surveillance gear had intercepted the charter as it winged its way over Key West. The airborne feds tracked the intruder up the coast, warning local police in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Maryland and finally Pennsylvania that the plane might touch down at any time.

The authorities' vigilance was highly rewarding. The squad unknowingly captured the chief plane of "Pot Air Line," a transportation enterprise financed by the Mafia. Seized was eight tons of marijuana, with a street value as high as $16 million, the largest shipment of pot ever flown into the U.S.

The lost pot was sure to heat up tempers in New York. Officials believe that New York Mafia Leader Carmine ("Lillo") Galente had bankrolled the DC-6 flight for $500,000 (based on roughly $20 a pound -the Bogota rate -plus $180,000 for the plane and other transportation costs). Galente has long wanted to re-establish the New York mob in the narcotics trade. Since the death of Carlo Gambino last fall, he has been struggling with another mobster, Aniello Dellacroce, for control of the New York underworld (TIME, Nov. 1). The plane's loss can hardly help Galente's leadership bid. Meanwhile, the feds can add a big new airplane to their fleet, which now totals 68; all but eleven were seized from high-flying smugglers.

&182; Exactly 13 1/2 hours after the DC-6 touchdown at Mount Pocono, a young American walked onto the 19th floor of a commercial office building in downtown Bogota and pumped three hollow-point bullets into Octavio Gonzalez, 38, chief of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in Colombia. Gonzalez slumped to the floor dead. The gunman quickly reloaded and, while secretaries scattered, fired several more shots before putting the revolver to his head and killing himself.

The bloody murder and suicide had no known connection with the Mount Pocono arrests. The murderer -Thomas Charles Cole, 25, a Viet Nam veteran and native of Wellsboro, Pa., whom U.S. lawmen in Philadelphia were investigating for murder and credit-card fraud -went last month to the Philadelphia DEA office offering to sell information on cocaine operations in Colombia, which he had visited earlier. Now the world's principal source for clandestine narcotics traffic, Colombia produces almost 85% of the world's illicit cocaine and its finest marijuana. Agents referred Cole to Bogota's DEA station. He arrived there early this month and saw Gonzalez, a tough, astute drug investigator.

A few days later Cole returned to see Gonzalez, insisting upon payment for apparently valueless information. When Gonzalez refused, Cole disappeared into a bathroom. Authorities think he snorted some cocaine there, before he came out with his gun blazing. Gonzalez was the fourth federal drug-enforcement agent killed this year.

&182; Pot smuggling flourishes in the United States, if the exploits of one dog in Georgia attest to anything. A German shepherd named Blitz who trots down the aisles of Amtrak trains during five-minute stopovers in Savannah, Ga., has sniffed out more than a ton of marijuana in the past 18 months. Last week the canine sleuth, who takes commands only in his native German tongue, spotted a valise containing 40 Ibs. of pot. Police immediately grabbed the two male owners of the suitcase, who were on their way to New York. (Federal authorities now use more than 100 drug-sniffing dogs.)

Blitz has also been trained to smell out heroin, cocaine and some barbiturates. He can search a house in 15 minutes, while a narcotics agent might take two hours. Blitz's feats have drawn so much publicity that police sources say there is an $8,000 contract out on him. But his effect on U.S. marijuana traffic is modest. The feds confiscate about 1,000 tons of grass a year -only about 10% of the estimated traffic.

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