Pubdate: Sat, 18 May 2002
Source: Bergen Record (NJ)
Copyright: 2002 Bergen Record Corp.
Contact:  http://www.bergen.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/44
Author: Mitchel Maddux

11 ACCUSED OF BEING PART OF COLOMBIAN DRUG RING

Not long after they left Memorial High School in West New York, a group of 
enterprising young men and women thought they had discovered an easy way to 
earn up to $20,000 for only a few days' work, federal authorities said.

But there were risks.

Last year, one young man died of an overdose after a balloon filled with 
heroin -he had swallowed several -broke inside him. And on Friday, some of 
them were among 11 people arrested by U.S. Customs agents and accused of 
participating in a Colombian drug ring.

Also arrested was a West New York man accused of recruiting Memorial High 
graduates to smuggle heroin hidden inside their bodies.

"He was offering $12,000 to $20,000 for a successful smuggling trip," said 
Tom Manifase, assistant special agent in charge of the Customs Service's 
Newark investigations office. "Word of mouth got around to the kids, and 
they got a little interest in it. For an 18- or 19-year-old kid, $20,000 is 
an awful lot of cash."

Friday's arrests and raids in West New York and Queens mark the latest 
development in an international probe into the trafficking ring, which 
authorities said lured young people to carry heroin on cruise ships in the 
Caribbean, through Mexico and Central America, and on jet flights into 
airports in Texas, Florida, and New Jersey.

Authorities said the Customs agents focused on three different cells of the 
Colombian-based organizations. One, based in West New York, specialized in 
smuggling heroin that was encased in condoms or balloons, swallowed, and 
carried inside couriers' bodies on commercial airline flights and cruise 
ships, officials said.

A second cell based in Queens used another method -soaking clothing in 
liquid heroin and carrying the garments in suitcases on jetliners.

Authorities said that a third cell focused on distributing the heroin, much 
of it in North Jersey.

"A lot of it was being distributed in West New York and the Hudson County 
area," said Martin D. Ficke, the top Customs agent in New Jersey.

Of those charged or arrested Friday, five had been enrolled at Memorial 
High in recent years, Ficke said. Four other former students have been 
among the couriers caught previously as they tried to smuggle heroin from 
South America into airports in Newark, New York, Miami, Houston, Dallas, 
and San Juan, Puerto Rico, he said.

"Here was an operation that was set up specifically to recruit Memorial 
High School graduates or dropouts," Ficke said. "It's obviously disturbing 
to us that you have kids that young involved in this."

Customs agents have uncovered no evidence suggesting that current students 
are involved in the alleged operation or were ever recruited. Nevertheless, 
Ficke said Customs has been working closely with Memorial High officials.

"They were very disturbed, and cooperated with the investigation," he said.

Ficke said that Customs agents plan to address the student body at Memorial 
to warn them about the perils of signing on as a narcotics courier.

Friday's raids involved 120 Customs agents and resulted in the seizure of 
18 kilograms of heroin, worth more than $1 million on the streets, 
officials said. They also seized $150,000 in cash at a Queens apartment, 
where agents found a pot of heroin "cooking" on a stove, officials said.

Ficke said that the clothing soaked in liquid heroin in South America is 
then soaked in water in clandestine drug labs when it arrives in the U.S. A 
chemical is added to the water, the pot is stirred, and then the garment is 
removed. Heating the liquefied heroin solution to a simmer eventually 
causes the water to evaporate, leaving behind heroin in a solid form, Ficke 
said.

"They basically scrape it out of the pot," he said.

One of those arrested in New York on Friday is suspected of being the 
operation's chemist, Ficke said.

Customs agents used wiretaps to monitor conversations between the drug 
ring's alleged members, who often communicated in code words to mask the 
illicit nature of the smuggling operation, officials said.

Five of those arrested appeared in U.S. District Court in Newark on Friday 
afternoon, before Magistrate Judge Madeline Cox-Arleo. The judge ordered 
all five held without bail. One of them, Dimas Escobar-Reyes, 20, of West 
New York, is a recent Memorial High alumnus alleged to have been the chief 
recruiter.

David Holman, a deputy public defender who represented those arrested, 
declined after the hearing to comment on the charges.

Friday's operation is an outgrowth of a yearlong investigation into the 
Colombian trafficking ring by Customs, the U.S. Drug Enforcement 
Administration, and the Colombian National Police. Of the 60 people 
arrested in the probe to date, 23 were taken into custody in Colombia. In 
November 2001, Colombian authorities closed down a clothing factory where 
heroin was found inside the seams and in the fabric of garments, officials 
said.

Authorities said that heroin smuggling in the metropolitan region is on the 
rise. Since October, Customs inspectors at Newark International and John F. 
Kennedy International airports have seized 1,634 pounds of heroin -nearly 
three times the amount seized in the same period the previous year, 
officials said.

In January 2001, Fabian Hurtado of Englewood died in Englewood Hospital and 
Medical Center after one of the 15 heroin-filled balloons in his body 
burst, officials said. Customs officials said that Hurtado was a courier 
for the ring targeted Friday.
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