San Juan.- Rising police pressure along the Mexican border is forcing Colombian drugs to seek alternate routes such as the Caribbean, where Puerto Rico has become one of the major access doors to the U.S., says a report cited Efe which calls Dominican Republic a narcotics “warehouse.”

U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Caribbean region director, Pedro Janer yesterday said the pressure along the Mexican border has forced rings of drug traffickers to set their sights on the Caribbean to smuggle cocaine to American territory.

Janer, who heads the DEA’s San Juan operations, said the traditional Mexican route has been hardened; narcotics traffickers have opened several corridors through the Caribbean and warned of heightened activity in what he called the Route of the East, which starts in Colombia and Venezuela.

The official said the drugs go through small Caribbean islands such as Tortola or Antigua, then Dominican Republic, which has become the warehouse for Puerto Rico. “The drug, once in Puerto Rico, is much easier to make it reach the continental United States.”

Janer said traffickers us boat containers and airplanes of courier companies which take off from San Juan’s airport.

He said the drug goes preferably to the United States east coast whose large populations of Dominicans and Puerto Ricans such as in New York, Florida and other cities make for much more fluid contacts.