UNDERTAKER FOR THE MULES

By EDWARD BARNES

My brother is dead. They called me and told me he is in a hotel room near La Guardia Airport. I don't know what to do." The distraught woman on the other end of the phone line pleaded with Orlando Tobon, or "Don Orlando" as he is known in the tight-knit neighborhood of Colombian immigrants in the Jackson Heights district of New York City.

Tobon knows what to do. For more than 10 years, the Colombian drug lords have been smuggling cocaine by hiring human "mules" to swallow as many as 100 condoms filled with the white powder. Many die en route or during the painful extraction process. And, over the decade, Tobon has received at least 400 calls for help from families of the dead. He tells the woman not to worry. Then he makes the phone calls.

"I don't keep records," says Tobon. "I don't ask questions. I just make sure these people who have been used by the mafiosi are brought to a funeral home, get a Mass and a Christian burial. If we can find their families, I arrange to send them home." He adds, "Each case is a tragedy."

Tobon, 50, immigrated 30 years ago from a small village in the Colombian Andes. He explains that charity runs in his family. His mother was returning from a trip to deliver clothes for the poor in Colombia when she was killed in the Avianca crash on New York's Long Island seven years ago. Tobon is angry at what the drug trade has done to the local community. His tiny travel agency is two doors from the spot where, three years ago, the cartel's killers murdered a reporter for asking too many questions. And then there are the mules.

Before Tobon began his work, mules who died were usually buried in potter's field, the city's burial ground for the unknown. As a rule they carry false papers, know no one at their destination and live in terrifying isolation. The lure: up to $5,000 a trip. "They are not bad people," says Tobon. "They are just desperate. In the papers of Colombia, the drug lords advertise for and take only good people who are likely to pass through customs without problems. They come because they are poor and have no choice. They are not responsible for the trade."

In his worst week, Tobon collected the remains of eight couriers. The youngest mule he has encountered was 17. The oldest was an 82-year-old fruit seller from Bogota who was caring for a 40-year-old retarded son. The narcotraffickers promised her that with just one trip, she could ensure her son's future. But a condom burst as she got into a taxi at Kennedy Airport, and she died an agonizing death. "I sent her home," says Tobon. Many, if not most, mules are women.

Called "internal body carriers" by the Drug Enforcement Administration, mules can carry up to one kilo of cocaine or heroin in their intestines. Before ingesting the drugs, they fast for several days, then swallow cooking oil for lubrication. Next, the oblong packets are placed in their esophagus with pliers and shoved down their throat. If a condom rips or is corroded by stomach acid during a long flight delay, the drugs burn, slowly, through the internal organs. On arrival the mules are taken to a hotel room by gang members and given large doses of laxative. "The most I have seen a man carry is 56," Tobon says. He estimates that about 5% of the couriers die en route.

When he started, Tobon was routinely questioned by police and DEA officers suspicious of his reasons for claiming the bodies. But now Tobon often gets calls from police telling him that another body has been discovered. Often bodies lay unclaimed for weeks because even when the families know of the death, they are fearful that if they come forward, they will be linked to the drug gangs.

Once, the mother of a 20-year-old victim pointed out a man to Tobon at Kennedy Airport: "There is the man who killed my son," she said. "I went to talk to him. He told me the death was not his concern. If some die along the way, it is to be expected, and it is nothing to him. He said they were paid for the risk. He then dismissed me with a wave of his hand."

The funeral arrangements cost about $2,000 to $3,000. There are two main expenses: a sealed metal coffin that meets airline standards and freight costs of about $700. "It would be cheaper to cremate them, but some older priests won't do a Mass if there is a cremation," Tobon says. He raises the money through appeals on two local radio stations. "Sometimes people will know the family or the village and send a donation. There is never enough." The money goes straight to the funeral home. He still owes for the last 15 funerals.

"I am a religious man. I could take no money for this," he says. What he does receive is threats from the drug gangs, who say his work brings unwanted attention to them. "Even the good people ask why I do this, because it makes everyone look bad, like we are all involved." Tobon sighs, knowing he will receive another phone call--and knowing how he will respond.