Violence is cropping up in small U.S. communities near the Canadian border at Cornwall, Ont., as Canadian organized-crime groups smuggle marijuana produced in Canada, U.S. law enforcement officials say.

"We've seen violence increase between transporters and people trying to stop them," said Stephen Stone police chief of Malone, N.Y. "We've seen people coming up to rob — intercept and rob — a transport of drugs."

Last Wednesday, 34 people were indicted as part of a major alleged marijuana smuggling operation through the Akwesasne-St. Regis Mohawk Reserve, which includes territory on both sides of the Canada-U.S. border. Of those, 23, including the alleged bosses, are Canadians, mostly from the Cornwall area.

About a half dozen Cornwall area people are facing murder charges, mostly smuggling-related. Three are charged with killing a trafficker in Stockholm, N.Y., when they were allegedly robbing his stash house.

Court documents allege the men moved $50 million worth of marijuana through Franklin County, N.Y.

The county's district attorney, Derek Champagne, said prosecutors believe the real amount was about four times that.

"Essentially, we're supplying high-grade marijuana, through this one small rural county of 50,000 people, to all of the northeast," he said.

The White House Office of Drug Control Policy is currently considering designating a border area south of Ottawa and Cornwall a High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area — something for which U.S. Senators Charles E. Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton and Representative John D. McHugh have been pushing. If that happens, it would boost the U.S. law enforcement presence on the border region.

Champagne said traffickers are openly recruiting young people in Franklin county. One group even posted a note at a local mall that read "Need drivers, no questions asked" along with a phone number, he recalled.

Nick Seymour is one Malone resident who learned the hard way about that type of job.

"There's a lot of money in it, but like most things in life that aren't good, it doesn't last," he said, adding that it landed him in prison at the age of 19.

Stone said smugglers who are caught always have a similar explanation.

"They'll look and point blank at you and say 'In today's economy, where am I going to make that kind of money and stay here?'"

He added that there aren't a lot of jobs in the area, and the ones that exist are disappearing.