13 ARRESTED IN FAIRHILL DRUG RAID

They are among 32 charged with participating in a $10 million ring. The
area was targeted by Operation Sunrise 3 years ago.

By Joseph A. Slobodzian INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Three years ago, federal and city authorities descended on the 3000 block
of North Lawrence Street in one of the first Operation Sunrise raids to
eradicate drug dealing in Fairhill.

Yesterday, they returned to the neighborhood with a federal indictment
charging 32 people in a $10 million round-the-clock drug market that
authorities said threatened to erase their gains over drug dealers.

"The first arrests in Operation Sunrise were made on this block," said
Philadelphia Deputy Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson. "Where we have
taken a block back, we have no intention of giving it back."

As with prior Sunrise operations, yesterday's news conference by U.S.
Attorney Michael L. Levy, Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham, and
federal and city law-enforcement officials was preceded by early-morning
raids that resulted in the arrests of 13 of the 32 defendants, including
23-year-old Damaris Santiago, who allegedly ran the ring with her three
brothers and a nephew.

The 61-count indictment charges all 32 defendants with conspiracy to
distribute cocaine and cocaine base. Some defendants are also charged with
drug-distribution and drug-possession charges.

Crews from the city's Department of Licenses and Inspections went to
Lawrence Street yesterday and began sealing as many as 10 rowhouses
allegedly used by the cocaine-trafficking ring.

There were also the usual staggering statistics: $10 million in sales since
about June 1998; a total of 660 pounds of cocaine powder sold in sixteenth-
and quarter-ounce quantities in clear plastic bags for $50 and $200,
respectively; a total of 220 pounds of crack cocaine sold in 7 milligram
quantities in pink-tinted, zip-top plastic bags for $5.

Assistant U.S. Attorney David H. Resnicoff said the drug ring served 100 to
200 customers daily.

And there was an organization sophisticated enough, authorities said, to
staff three paid shifts of on-the-street dealers, lookouts, and managers
that enabled the ring to operate seven days a week from early morning until
9 p.m.

There also seemed to be a real sense of frustration among officials with
the intractability of the illegal drug trade in a neighborhood that has
been a focus of antidrug efforts.

Johnson, for example, noted that in the last three years, police had
increased the number of beats in Fairhill from two to 18. This year, he
added, police had arrested 75 drug dealers and 88 customers.

William R. Nelson, the acting head of the city's office of the federal Drug
Enforcement Administration, said the prosecution had special significance
to the DEA because much of the dealing allegedly was transacted within
1,000 feet of the Potter-Thomas Elementary School at Sixth Street and
Indiana Avenue.

The DEA had "adopted" that school and sponsored programs there during
Spanish Heritage Week, Nelson said.

And Levy said that the cocaine trafficking was taking place within 50 yards
of the site where city recreation officials tomorrow will begin operating a
"nutritious lunch" program for neighborhood school-age children until
classes resume in September.

"The fact is," Abraham said, "that there are a lot of wonderful people
living there trying to raise families and trying to save their community."

According to the indictment, the organization was allegedly led and
controlled by four siblings of the Santiago family - Damaris; Eduardo, 34;
Hector, 38; and Miguel, 34 - and a nephew, Angel Santiago Jr., 20. The
suspects all reside in Fairhill or adjacent North Philadelphia neighborhoods.

Damaris Santiago was brought before a federal magistrate judge yesterday
afternoon and ordered detained pending a formal bail hearing on Tuesday.

Her attorney, William T. Cannon, said that he and Santiago had just
received the indictment, but that she would likely plead not guilty and go
to trial.

The Santiago family has had a series of legal problems over the last few
years. Cannon said Damaris Santiago's husband, Jonathan Berberena, 20, is
in city custody awaiting a Sept. 11 murder trial. Berberena's 19-year-old
brother, Joel, and another sibling, Neftali Vellon Baez, 24, are also
charged in yesterday's indictment.

Resnicoff said all 13 arrested yesterday were ordered detained pending bail
hearings scheduled for tomorrow and next week.