Pubdate: Sun, 26 Nov 2000 Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA) Copyright: 2000 San Francisco Chronicle Contact: 901 Mission St., San Francisco CA 94103 Feedback: http://www.sfgate.com/select.feedback.html Website: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/ Forum: http://www.sfgate.com/conferences/ Author: Josh Meyer GLOBAL TEAM BREAKS UP ECSTASY DRUG RING U.S., Allies Capture Santa Monica Suspect And 4 Million Tablets Before it ended in a series of raids last week, the hunt for the world's biggest cartel trafficking in the designer drug Ecstasy took an international consortium of law enforcement agents from the rave clubs of Hollywood through a host of European cities. For 15 months, the authorities -- led by a Los Angeles-based team of FBI, DEA and Customs Service agents -- played an elaborate cat-and-mouse game with Tamer Adel Ibrahim and his alleged associates. They watched as the young cadre of suspected traffickers traveled to Milan; Paris; Frankfurt, Germany; Amsterdam and elsewhere around the globe -- even to Mexico, Israel and South Korea to arrange their deals. Authorities believed the group to be perhaps the No. 1 wholesaler of a drug whose explosive growth among young people has alarmed those at the highest reaches of the U.S. Justice Department -- especially because of new indications that Ecstasy may cause depression and significant brain damage among chronic users. They said their concerns were confirmed, that wiretaps and surveillance showed that the cartel was engaged in a global enterprise, shipping literally millions of the tablets from various drops in Europe to Los Angeles. Ibrahim, a slight 26-year-old, allegedly ran the operation from a swank highrise, ocean-view apartment in Santa Monica and while driving around town in a sleek black Range Rover, authorities say. Capping that investigation, the Dutch National Police early Wednesday raided 17 locations in Amsterdam, arresting seven alleged co-conspirators and seizing hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash, as well as guns and other weapons. And authorities in Washington and Los Angeles disclosed that Ibrahim was quietly taken into custody two months ago in connection with a shipment of more than 1.2 million Ecstasy tablets headed for Los Angeles. All told, the multinational dragnet, dubbed Operation Red Tide, has seized more than 4 million tablets of the so-called designer drug and arrested at least 22 suspects in six U.S. cities and four European countries. And an additional 18 people linked to Ibrahim's operation have been arrested in various law enforcement operations around the world as well within the past year, authorities said. "It's the largest Ecstasy ring in the world that we know of, and we took them down," said FBI Special Agent Matthew McLaughlin, a department spokesman in Los Angeles. "That's significant." So significant, in fact, that top Justice Department officials said Wednesday that Ibrahim's arrest and the dismantling of his alleged network will go a long way toward staunching the flow of the drug from manufacturing bases in Europe to ravenous users here in Los Angeles and elsewhere in the United States. And they praised the operation as a textbook example of how law enforcement agencies from various countries can band together to fight the increasingly global reach of major drug dealers. "It shows how in the 21st century, there are no borders anymore -- law enforcement agencies can now coordinate, investigate and pursue major drug traffickers around the globe," said Michele Leonhart, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Los Angeles Field Division. "This is the first time we have seen such an international syndicate, and one worked by so many international law enforcement agencies." Ecstasy's proper name is methylene dioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA. The drug creates some mild hallucinatory effects similar to LSD but also creates a sense of well-being, euphoria and even empathy that makes it so popular among all-night "ravers" and others seeking a communal experience. - --- MAP posted-by: Josh Sutcliffe