On patrol with the Shadow Wolves, the best hunters of humans in the world
By Nick Allen, Tohono O'odham, Arizona
5:30PM GMT 26 Dec 2011
In the seemingly endless desert wasteland of the Arizona-Mexico border, amid 30ft high cacti and thorny mesquite trees, an eagle-eyed Native American scout has found what he is looking for.
A freshly dislodged leaf from a Creosote bush is his first sign, followed by a snapped branch still wet to the touch. Nearby, a shiny patch of dirt shows where suspected drug smugglers have tried to evade his ancient skills by brushing over their vehicle's tyre tracks with a tree limb.
Unfortunately for the smugglers Jason Garcia, 38, a modern day Tohono O'odham Indian, is hot on their trail. Mr Garcia is a member of an elite group called the "Shadow Wolves," the US Department of Homeland Security's only Native American tracking unit. The squad also includes members of the Navajo, Lakota and Blackfoot tribes, and they are considered by some the best hunters of human beings in the world.
While a giant multi-billion dollar fence, unmanned Predator drones and electronic sensors are being touted as the way to seal this porous section of the border, Mr Garcia uses the same methods his ancestors developed over centuries to catch deer and peccary.
He and eight other Shadow Wolves operate in the Tohono O'odham Nation, a vast Indian reservation roughly the size of Northern Ireland. The O'odham have inhabited the area for thousands of years and their name translates as "Desert People.". Some 20,000 of them now live in scattered villages.
The reservation's border with Mexico is 76 miles long and its canyons and scrub land have become a favourite illicit entry point to the US for both Mexican drug cartels and illegal immigrants.
A recent tightening of border controls in urban parts of California and Texas has funnelled interlopers to more inhospitable areas such as Tohono O'odham, where there are few paved roads and the desert is infested with rattle snakes and venomous lizards called Gila monsters.
As a result the area is becoming more dangerous and the stakes for both crossers and law enforcement are high. Over the course of last year a record
252 bodies were recovered along the Arizona border as illegal immigrants perished from heat exhaustion and dehydration in summer, when temperatures reach 118F, and hypothermia in winter.
Last December border agent Brian Terry, 40, a former Marine, was killed in a shoot-out with Mexican bandits who were preying on illegal immigrants. On the day The Daily Telegraph visited Tohono O'odham a Guatemalan would-be illegal immigrant, Byron Neftali Sosa Orellana, 28, was shot dead by border agents near the Shadow Wolves base. The Shadow Wolves themselves once had
$500,000 bounties placed on their heads following a shoot-out with a drug gang.
The tracking technique they use is known as "cutting for sign" and is taught from childhood. Mr Garcia says: "This takes a lot of patience. You're looking for something that's almost invisible. Initially it can be something minute. But it's the thrill of the hunt. I'm looking for bad guys that don't want to be found."
Bending to his knees to study his latest find he can tell that the quarry passed by only minutes before in an SUV, probably a Chevrolet, heading directly north towards Phoenix 100 miles away.
Jumping into his own pickup truck he then plunges into the undergrowth, bouncing wildly through the cacti, and down a dry rutted riverbed, following signs invisible to the untrained eye. Unlike his ancestors he is armed with an M-4 rifle and a semi-automatic pistol.
Before long the Chevrolet looms ahead. It is stationary and has been partially hidden behind a cactus with a camouflage tarpaulin hastily thrown over it. The smugglers have already fled. Inside, a small amount of marijuana remains but the main cargo has gone. The SUVs can each carry loads of up to 2,000lb of marijuana, with a street value of $2 million.
Disappointed, Mr Garcia indicates a hill a few hundred yards away where one of the drug cartel spotters may be hiding. He explains that the spotters sit on peaks all the way from the border to Phoenix. They outnumber the Shadow Wolves and are equipped with night vision goggles, mobile phones and radios that deliver encrypted messages to drug mules on the ground. Other spotters work for people smuggling gangs and are in touch with the "coyotes" who guide groups of illegal immigrants across the desert.
"We're probably being watched right now," says Mr Garcia. "They see us coming and they get on the radio telling people we're coming."
Despite the vastness of the desert the tracker soon discovers two less recently abandoned drug smuggling vehicles hidden under tree branches, and a pile of warm coats left behind by a group of illegal immigrants. However, the trail of broken twigs and dislodged stones eventually goes cold. Mr Garcia's longest ever successful track took him 21 miles through the desert and mountains.
Drug smugglers use every possible option to get over the US border including horses, quad bikes and even ultralight aircraft. But the main delivery method is still the oldest, human mules carrying 40lb hessian wrapped bales of marijuana for payment of as little as $500 per trip. It can take them seven days to cross the desert.
The mules, and the thousands of illegal immigrants crossing, strap pieces of carpet to their shoes in an attempt to obscure their footprints. In response the trackers examine thorns for snagged fibres of clothing or hessian. They study the direction of indentations in the soil made by dislodged pebbles.
Moisture from a carelessly squashed piece of cactus tells them how far ahead people are. Disturbed soil under a tree reveals how long ago someone stopped to rest, as the shade from the tree moves through the day.
The game of cat and mouse between the Shadow Wolves and the mountain-based spotters goes on daily, and at night, and the tracking methods are having some significant success. They seize an average of 60,000lb of drugs a year with a street value of around $60 million (£38 million). It is impossible to determine how much marijuana, and how many illegal immigrants, get through.
With illegal immigration a hotbed issue in the 2012 presidential race most Republican candidates, with the notable exception of Texas Governor Rick Perry, favour erecting a giant fence across the entire US-Mexico border.
But the politicians' obsession with a fence is not shared by some of those at the sharp end of protecting the border. They appeared to back Mr Perry's view that the priority should be more manpower.
In Tohono O'odham there are already metal barriers in place to stop vehicles, but drug smugglers simply build temporary ramps and drive over them.
Mr Garcia said a fence would be useful in some flat areas but there was "a lot of rugged mountain country" where it would be simply impractical.
John Bothof, 47, a Lakota Shadow Wolf, said a fence would be "pretty ineffectual" and the money should be used to "create local Native American task forces."
"These guys live out here. They know what's going on," he said.
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