Carrier Rats

"Wanna make a few hundred over the weekend, B,ud, driving a new Buick across the border?" If Bud did, and didn't mind smuggling, he got behind the wheel and purred south. At the border town of Laredo, a tourist card could be bought for $2.10. From Laredo south to Monterrey is only 146 miles over good roads, and at Monterrey a pickup would take the Buick, and sell it for $5,600.

In the ten months since the government slapped an embargo on all but the most essential imports--in a desperate attempt to conserve Mexico's dwindling dollar credits--smuggling has become an organized, multimillion-dollar racket. And the 4,570 gleaming new automobiles that have clandestinely crossed the border are only a part of the story.

U.S. cigarettes (which sell for 30^ to 40^ a package) come in by the carload. Nylons lie deep on department-store shelves. The newest Parker pens are fast sellers at most stationers. In old Juarez, some storekeepers are well stocked with U.S. tinned goods carried across the international bridge from El Paso, a few pounds at a time, by "carrier rats"--troops of black-shawled old women.

Now the annoyed government is cracking down. From Movie Star Jorge Negrete (who had bought it innocently enough), officials took a brand-new Cadillac, and announced that owners of other smuggled cars faced the same treatment plus a six-year jail term and a $1,000 fine. Last week, motorists driving into Mexico were asked to surrender car-ownership certificates at the border. Federal inspectors also moved in on bribe-taking customs men who connived in letting big shipments through, arrested five customs officers.

One foray went awry. In Mexico City, recently, cops jailed the proprietors of ten dress shops, quietly let them go a few hours later. The frocks were Mexican-made. So were the small black labels with "Made in America" in gold lettering.

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