Pubdate: Thu, 22 Jun 2006
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2006 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Monica Davey and Eric Ferkenhoff
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Marijuana)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Fentanyl

RAID IN CHICAGO TAKES AIM AT LETHAL HEROIN ADDITIVE

CHICAGO -- Hundreds of law enforcement officers raided a public
housing project here shortly after dawn on Wednesday, taking aim at
what they described as a sophisticated drug ring that may be
responsible for some of 70 recent fatal overdoses in Chicago and its
suburbs.

The overdoses were caused by fentanyl, a dangerously potent heroin
additive that has also led hundreds of other people to overdose in
cities including Detroit, Camden, N.J., and Philadelphia. The
authorities here said they viewed Wednesday's action as a first
significant attack on what has become the deadliest drug combination
in years.

The raid, by some 400 federal and local officers, was carried out at
the Dearborn Homes, on the South Side. There, officials said, they
seized a variety of drugs including some 200 pounds of heroin, which
will be tested for the presence of fentanyl.

Twenty-five people were arrested in Chicago, most at the project,
along with at least one other in Texas and at least one other in
Akron, Ohio. That is in addition to five who were already in custody
here.

Still others remain at large, among a total of nearly 50 people
charged by prosecutors with conspiracy to possess and distribute
heroin, fentanyl, crack cocaine and marijuana.

The prosecutors described a complex system of sales and marketing
within the project by the Mickey Cobras, a street gang. Dealers had to
obtain rights to sell their own particular recipe of heroin and other
substances by paying a tax to the gang's leadership, said Gary S.
Shapiro, first assistant United States attorney. Several of the eight
names of recipes, or "brands," seemed themselves to promise extreme
danger: Reaper, Drop Dead and Lethal Injection.

Fentanyl, a painkiller dozens of times as potent as morphine, is added
to enhance heroin's effect. Though warnings concerning a variety of
fatal heroin mixtures have been issued over many years, the police and
drug experts say they fear that the recent overdoses involving
fentanyl, much of which has been traced to Mexico, may suggest a
larger network and thus a broader problem.

The authorities said that none of the people arrested Wednesday had
yet been directly tied to the fatal overdoses here, but that the
investigation was continuing. A number of the deaths occurred in or
near the Dearborn Homes.

An hour before the raid began, Timothy Ogden, associate special agent
in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Chicago office,
warned officers about what they might expect if they were to find
fentanyl, large amounts of which can attack the respiratory system.

"It is dangerous to the touch," Mr. Ogden told the waiting officers.
"You can overdose by simply touching the stuff and touching it to your
eyes, your nose."

Among those arrested was James Austin, whom the authorities described
as a leader of the Mickey Cobras, and Tashika Sledge, a Chicago police
officer, whom they accuse of protecting gang members by telling them
about police activities. The others arrested, the prosecutors said,
included members of the gang's "board of directors," those who had
their own heroin brands and lower-level workers, from "shift
supervisors" of the trade to transporters.

The raid took place as parallel investigations proceeded elsewhere. In
Wisconsin, officials of the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner's Office
said Wednesday that they planned to re-examine six deaths caused by
heroin overdoses this year to see whether fentanyl might have been
involved. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake