Pubdate: Thu, 01 Dec 2005
Source: Boston Globe (MA)
Copyright: 2005 Globe Newspaper Company
Contact:  http://www.boston.com/globe/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/52
Author: Michael Levenson and Maria Cramer, Globe Correspondent and Globe Staff
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)

78 ARRESTED IN ALLEGED HEROIN RING

12 From Mass. Are Suspected Of Smuggling

US and Colombian authorities said yesterday that they had crushed a 
major international heroin ring, arresting 78 people, including a 
dozen Massachusetts residents, who had smuggled hundreds of pounds of 
heroin from Colombia and then sold the potent drug for millions of 
dollars on the streets of Boston, Chicago, New York, and Orlando, Fla.

The arrests followed a 17-month investigation by the US Drug 
Enforcement Administration and Colombian National Police. Authorities 
said the arrests, along with the seizure of 20 guns, $1.4 million in 
cash, and 78 kilograms of heroin, would effectively stop a major 
source of heroin that had been linked to a dozen fatal overdoses in 
Massachusetts.

"Today, we stopped an avalanche of heroin and cocaine coming here, 
and we removed mountains of the destructive substance," said June W. 
Stansbury, special agent in charge of the New England office of the 
DEA, speaking at a press conference to announce the arrests at the 
Moakley Federal Courthouse in Boston.

Officials described the smugglers as creative. They sewed heroin into 
the lining of clothing and the soles of shoes. On Oct. 7, police in 
Colombia discovered a shipment of heroin worth about $4 million 
hidden inside the frames of paintings of geishas. Authorities believe 
that much of the shipment was headed to Boston.

To crack the ring, Colombian and US authorities tapped 100 phone 
lines. They said they posted a camera outside an apartment used by 
alleged ringleader Julio Cartagena, 47, of Malden, and watched him at 
his job, running a cellphone store called Tristeza Communications in 
Charlestown. They followed his alleged associates to a supermarket in 
Revere and to restaurants in New York. Yesterday, they began the 
raids and arrests. Agents handcuffed 12 people from Massachusetts, 
including one who was in Florida and one who was in New York, and 
four Colombian citizens who are to be extradited to Boston. Antonio 
Molina, 45, of Everett, remains at large, officials said.

"We believe that this was a substantial organization, and the 
important thing about this is we were able to take them down from top 
to bottom," Stansbury said, saying that the arrests include low-level 
street dealers, as well as Cartagena and his alleged primary 
supplier, Luis A. Lopez, 51, of Medford.

Cartagena, who was said to be in charge of the Massachusetts end of 
the operation, allegedly received shipments from Lopez and passed 
them to a network of lower-level dealers across the eastern part of 
the state. Some of the others charged yesterday were described as 
runners who brought the drugs into the state from Colombia, New York, 
and Florida.

US Attorney Michael J. Sullivan said the charges against the 13 
Massachusetts residents include conspiracy to import more than one 
kilogram of heroin from Colombia to the United States, punishable by 
life in prison, and conspiracy to distribute heroin, which carries a 
maximum penalty of 20 years behind bars.

The investigation, dubbed Operation High Step, opened a window onto a 
complex network of drug smuggling that reached from airport bathrooms 
in Colombia, where cleaning staff and security guards handed heroin 
to US-bound smugglers, to Boston, Lawrence, Lynn, Everett, and 
Lawrence, where much of the heroin was later sold in $5 and $10 bags. 
Some of the money was then wired to suppliers in Colombia, authorities said.

In a phone conversation recorded by a Revere police officer and 
recounted in an affidavit, the alleged dealers speak proudly of 
dealing with a Colombian supplier called La Iguana. Lopez and 
Cartagena allegedly boast of trying to find "the most beautiful," or 
highest-quality heroin, not the "feo" or low-quality drug.

"Wednesday?" Cartagena is said to ask Lopez in one conversation 
recorded Sept. 29. "When that comes in, we'll see. This weekend we 
will be dancing that dance." Authorities said that was a reference to 
reaping large profits from heroin.

Stansbury cautioned that although the arrests will stop a substantial 
quantity of heroin from entering Massachusetts, new dealers will be 
ready within days to supply tens of thousands of addicts in the 
region. Heroin is an increasing problem in New England, she said, as 
users who can no longer afford prescription Oxycontin switch to the 
less expensive, highly addictive morphine derivative.

"It's a big problem, unfortunately," Stansbury said. "We are seeing 
an increase in heroin addicts nationwide."

Colombia's top drug enforcement official, Brigadier General Jorge 
Baron Leguizamon, said at the press conference that he wanted to 
dedicate yesterday's arrests to the 200 Colombian police officers 
killed in drug violence in that nation every year. Through a 
translator, he praised the cooperation between his country and the 
United States.

"We will continue our fight against drugs," the Colombian general 
declared. He added that 41 people in Colombia had been arrested in 
connection with the ring, which his force had been investigating for 
a year and a half.

Locally, police chiefs who aided in the investigation described 
heroin as a scourge in Massachusetts that fuels crime.

"We see victims almost every day in cities like Lynn, people 
overdosing, people dying from use of heroin," said Police Chief John 
W. Suslak of Lynn.

In their day-to-day lives around Boston, however, the alleged dealers 
were inconspicious.

Cartagena's neighbors on Staples Avenue in Everett were shocked to 
learn of the arrests yesterday. A resident said one of the men who 
used the apartment was friendly.

"Very nice, very polite, very quiet. . . . He looked nice," said the 
neighbor, who did not want to give her name.

She said she heard police banging on the apartment door at 7 a.m. 
yesterday. "They yelled, 'Merry Christmas!' before they bashed the 
door down," said the resident, who did not want to give her name.

At Tristeza Communications on Bunker Hill Street in Charlestown 
yesterday, the windows and doors were padlocked and covered with 
metal shutters. Juan Rodriguez, owner of Bunker Hill Market, said 
yesterday that two friendly employees had helped him send money to 
the Dominican Republic.

"It's a business like any other," he said in Spanish. "I just know 
them as a cellphone and money-transfer store."

Police Chief Steven S. Mazzie of Everett said he was not surprised 
that they managed to melt into their communities. "Cities like ours 
are just prime targets for them to set up shop in," Mazzie said. "The 
thing about communities like mine is these type of individuals can 
blend in very easily. I mean Everett's a blue-collar, working-class 
city, very diverse."

Some neighbors had complained that Cartagena's shop seemed to draw 
people who did not appear to be residents and would loiter outside.

"I know that police have told us at the public safety meetings that 
they've been heavily investigated, they've been watched," said Thomas 
Cunha, chairman of the Charlestown Neighborhood Council.

Authorities said Cartagena had used the store to wire drug profits 
back to Colombia.

Miren Uriarte, director of the Mauricio Gaston Institute for Latino 
Community Development and Public Policy at the University of 
Massachusetts at Boston, said she was concerned that the arrests 
would cast a negative light on the local Colombian community.

"This is not something that should be seen as characteristic of the 
Colombians living in Massachusetts," she said.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman