For Shelby County drug interdiction team, hours of tedium and occasional moments of thrilling discovery

Editor's note: Interstate 40 is a major east-west corridor for Mexican drug cartels moving illegal drugs throughout the country and shipping proceeds back to Mexico, law enforcement officials say. Both of the West Memphis Police Department officers killed in Thursday's shootings on I-40 were involved in criminal interdiction work. In April, journalists from The Commercial Appeal spent time with officers from another unit who try to catch criminals on the interstate. This story describes one morning on the job.

The officers spend their days searching for drugs and fugitives on the highway.

It's a tedious, frustrating process, but at last, at a spot near the Fayette County line on Interstate 40, it looks like they will bag a prize: Everything about the two brothers in the white Chevrolet sedan seems suspicious.

The men are from Texas and say they're going to Louisville to work as roofers. One says they're coming from Houston. But questioned separately, the other says they're coming from San Antonio.

That's enough to attract the attention of Shelby County Sheriff's Sgt. Kevin Helms.

The driver calmly signs a form that gives officers the right to search.

Helms calls a colleague, who brings a drug-sniffing dog to the car. The animal seems interested. A second dog gives clearer signals, especially at the car's gas tank.

Soon, a team of officers is swarming over the car, checking every possible void where drugs could be hidden. They open the hood and peer inside. They use screwdrivers to probe for hidden compartments and to remove a set of speakers in the trunk.

Helms, an energetic 35-year-old with short blond hair, even listens through a stethoscope as he taps the tires.

He unpacks the men's suitcases on the road. These "roofers" have bags full of soft shirts and jeans -- not what you'd wear for construction work. There are no tools or work boots in the car.

"They're full of crap!" Helms says.

Each day, Helms oversees a joint team of sheriff's deputies and Memphis police officers called the Interstate Criminal Interdiction Unit.

They look for drugs and whatever other criminal activity they can find: pimps transporting prostitutes, criminals on the run or shipments of stolen goods and counterfeit items.

The officers celebrate their finds with a wall of photos in their office near Shelby Farms, like hunters mounting trophy heads over a mantel.

One photo shows an officer posing next to a pile of packages on a car trunk. The caption reads "Darryl -- 71 lbs weed, 2-21-10." Another photo celebrates a find from October: $294,355 in cash, presumably drug money.

But finds like these aren't too common. Cars and trucks whiz by the officers' parked vehicles all the time, and the law says the officers stop only those committing violations, including improper lane changes and following other vehicles too closely.

Traffickers, meanwhile, are constantly changing smuggling tactics and sharing tips to evade police.

"It's a game you get to play," Helms said. "Sometimes you get caught and you have to lose. And sometimes we probably don't see any."

On the morning journalists spent with Helms, he spent several minutes writing up someone whose only violation was a suspended driver's license.

"While I'm doing this, there's probably 50,000 kilos going by," he joked.

The day was full of similar leads that failed to pan out. That's what makes the white Chevrolet sedan so exciting to the searchers.

The car attracted Helms' attention because of its deeply tinted windows -- too dark under Tennessee law. Officers put the two men in a police vehicle as the search began.

More information comes in.

The officers learn the driver has a pending felony charge in Texas for transporting a large amount of marijuana in this very vehicle. Helms says the driver told them that it was 175 pounds.

The straps around the gas tank are bent.

Tension builds as the men wait for an officer who will use a special fiber-optic scope to look inside the gas tank.

Patrolman Eric Johnson finally arrives with the equipment. He snakes the tube into the gas tank and peers through the eyepiece.

"Don, look at this!" he says.

There's something in the tank.

Surely, any minute now, he'll shout that he has found the drugs.

But it doesn't happen. Minutes pass and Johnson pulls out the scope. The sighting inside the tank was a false alarm.

There's nothing left to do but let the men go with a warning to remove the tint from their windows.

Helms notes that they were on the scene for about 50 minutes. As the officers devoted their full attention to one small car, hundreds of vehicles passed by in both directions.

"Oh well. That's part of the game," he said.

A moment later, he added, "If anything, you see the difficulty of this."

-- Daniel Connolly: 529-5296