The Plain Dealer

The chariot that carried American families for decades is hauling a new passenger, one loaded with drugs and cash.

Drug peddlers increasingly place couriers on buses to funnel drugs across the country because security at bus terminals is soft, authorities say.

In the post-Sept. 11 era, it is easier to hop onto a bus than to wade through security at the airport. Congress is debating what to do about it and how much money it would take.

The worry comes as ridership at Greyhound, the nation’s largest intercity bus line, has dropped 18 percent since 2000.

Today, police worry about drug trafficking and Congress fears terrorists. Most bus terminals do not inspect passengers’ belongings, X-ray luggage or even ask questions as people step to the buses.

“They just don’t check,” said Constance Fergus, a 37-year-old San Francisco resident who traveled by train and Greyhound last month to visit her mother in Columbus, Ohio.

“They never checked my identification. They never checked my bags. … I would have no problems at all bringing drugs in. No problems at all.”

The day before at the Greyhound terminal in Cleveland, passengers slept slumped in chairs or talked on cell phones in a terminal that smelled like antiseptic. A 20-something chain-smoker carried a red-and-black Pokemon backpack.

A grandmother toted three pieces of unwieldy luggage, and a middle-age man stood with a simple suitcase.

“Let’s go,” called the driver, ready to head to Cincinnati. The passengers headed a dozen steps to the bus and shoved their bags into the luggage compartment. No one inspected them.

The lack of security worried a Cleveland woman riding 22 hours to see her grandchild graduate from high school in Meridian, Miss. It also concerned a young mother who boarded the bus in Columbus with her 18-month-old son.

Most passengers did not want to give their names, but some said they put up with the situation because they cannot afford airline tickets.

The lack of police presence worries drug agents.

“Carrying drugs on buses has definitely picked up,” said John Sommer, leader of the Ohio High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, an initiative to coordinate drug enforcement. “We’re trying to put together strategies to fight this. …”

The need is widespread.

• In Cleveland, police and federal drug agents have arrested seven men in four months on charges of funneling cheap, high-potency heroin.

“Every person I interviewed said the same thing: ‘I came up on a bus, brought the stuff with me and then met up with people,”‘ said a federal drug agent who helped make the arrests. He requested anonymity because he continues to work undercover.

• In November, IRS and FBI agents seized $150,000 from two men headed to El Paso, Texas, on a Greyhound. Acting on tips, agents followed the men to the bus terminal, where the men handed over the money without an argument. The men said a man had knocked on their hotel door and told them to take the money to El Paso but gave no other instructions.

• During the spring, police in Charleston, W.Va., arrested nearly a dozen drug peddlers from Detroit and other northern cities as they arrived by bus.

“As regular as the bus comes in, there will be a drug dealer on it,” said Lt. Chuck Carpenter, leader of the Charleston drug task force.

The problems have not escaped the notice of Congress.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, the federal government spent more than $10 billion upgrading security at airports. That drove many drug peddlers to buses, where the government has spent just $40 million, said Sommer, the drug enforcement leader.

In March, a congressional subcommittee discussed the need to keep terrorists off buses and trains. The bus industry wants Congress to give it $150 million over three years to bolster security.

“Every day, 2 million Americans take their shoes off at airports,” Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn., told the subcommittee. “What are we doing to keep our bus and transit and rail systems safe? Nothing, comparatively.”

The bus industry has pushed for X-ray equipment similar to that used in airports for luggage. Trailways, the second largest intercity bus line in the United States, has installed surveillance cameras on buses.

The Transportation Research Board, a division of the National Research Council, studied security measures in the bus industry in 2003. It recommended that terminals hire more guards and install video surveillance cameras.

Paying for the upgrades is a problem.

“We just don’t have the money in the bus industry to pay for security to look for drugs,” said Ronald Moore, the president of Burlington Trailways in Burlington, Iowa. “When a person gets on a bus, we can’t tell whether he is a drug dealer or not.”

Greyhound spokeswoman Anna Folmnsbee said the company prides itself on the safety of passengers, “from the second they step into the terminal until they walk off the bus.”

Greyhound has scanned passengers and luggage with metal-detecting wands at some stations. It would not identify where the program has been used.

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