Sitting on the western coast of Canada, Vancouver has become a center for trade between North America and countries around the Pacific rim. An increasing amount of that trade is in illegal drugs headed for the United States.

Situated on the Pacific Ocean and the U.S. border, Vancouver has become a last stop for drugs bound for the United States. Vancouver is the largest port on the west coast of North America and has strong ties to Asia and Latin American countries on the Pacific rim through business and family connections. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) say these are leading reasons why Vancouver is a haven for South American drug cartels, biker gangs, and Asian triads involved in the drug trade.

Drug seizures in British Columbia -- which includes Vancouver -- more than doubled last year, to 1,588 from just 793 in 1996.

Heroin usually comes from Asia, with cocaine and hashish originating in Central or South America.

In an attempt to stop the flow, customs officials in Canada are stepping up inspections of goods coming into Vancouver on ships. Suspicious or unusual cargo from traditional drug-producing countries are opened and searched. Still, this accounts for less than two percent of all goods that come through the Port of Vancouver.

Sergeant Chuck Doucette of the RCMP in Vancouver says the increase in drug trafficking in Canada comes as the United States is enforcing stiffer anti-drug laws.

Doucette said, "It seems to have coincided with the fact that in the United States, they have really clamped down on drug trafficking and importation. There are higher (prison) sentences. The courts are really looking at it as a threat to their country and they're taking action appropriately. Whereas here in Canada, our sentences are much lower and the (prison) time they do, if they get caught, seems to be easier time. Quite often, people are getting away with fines that drug traffickers consider the cost of doing business -- less than what they (would) pay in legitimate taxes if they were a legitimate business. So it seems that ... it makes it a little more attractive to use this as a trans-shipment site."

Once the drugs are in Canada, police say there is no limit on ways of smuggling it into the United States. With the largest undefended-boundary in the world, some smugglers just simply walk across the border.

Gene Davis is an assistant chief U.S. Border Patrol agent in Blaine, Washington, which is right on the U.S./Canadian border with Vancouver. His concern is that organized gangs might be sending their drugs through Vancouver and Canada because the southern U.S. border with Mexico is becoming tighter.

"I do know this is one of the fears that we have as we continue to put pressure along the southern border, which we're doing," Davis said. He added that the program "we have in California is very effective. We're moving into Arizona. We've also got some areas in Texas we're concentrating on very hard. If it gets tougher along the southern border, with the vulnerability we have along the northern border, that may -- this could be real threat, more of a threat as time goes on."