The next drug vessel ferrying illegal narcotics to New York or South Florida isn’t a high-speed cigarette boat with twin engines — it might be a massive cruise ship with 19 decks and a water slide.

Because they sometimes make port in destinations with lax drug enforcement and carry thousands of passengers, cruise ships may unwittingly ferry legions of potential drug mules. But US Customs and Border agents are only conducting “minimal” security inspections, according to a troubling new Inspector General’s report.

“Overall, CBP conducted minimal secondary inspections during our site visits” to four Florida seaports, the IG investigators found.

Although Customs did check a passenger manifest to vet certain passengers, “we observed CBP using other methods to select passengers and crew disembarking cruise ships for secondary inspection less frequently,” probers found.

CBP wrongly “perceives the cruise ship environment to be low risk for trafficking illicit drugs and other contraband” into the US because of its own low record of seizures,” the investigators found.

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Tagged: Border BACK TO HOMEPAGE