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.