CROSS-BORDER COOPERATION CRACKED DRUG RING

Authorities are touting unprecedented cooperation between U.S. and
Canadian authorities in cracking a marijuana-smuggling ring that used
a helicopter to bring potent "B.C. Bud" into Washington and then
return to British Columbia with cocaine.

The crime ring has direct ties to outlaw motorcycle gangs in Calgary,
said an official with British Columbia's Organized Crime Agency.

The 18-month investigation resulted in the seizure of a house, two
luxury cars, a boat, numerous firearms, cash, drugs and a helicopter.
Fourteen people, most of them Canadians, have been arrested so far,
said Cpl. Garry Begg of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

"This has been a significant operation and is made more so by the new
levels of cooperation we have reached with our cross-border allies,"
Begg said.

The investigation began with the seemingly routine arrests of two
men, one a Canadian and the other an American, in June 1999. The men
were caught trying to sneak 32 pounds of marijuana into Washington.

"One of them had a cell-phone number, and we traced it to a name" in
Vancouver, Begg said. That same name popped up a few days later
during an investigation into an unusually large currency exchange at
a Canadian financial institution, he said.

Over the next several months, authorities intercepted additional drug
shipments and discovered the group was using a helicopter to move
marijuana across the border into the Mount Baker area, using an old
logging road as a landing pad.

During a raid at a suspect's house near Sumas Mountain in British
Columbia in September, agents found evidence that as many as 80 such
helicopter trips had been made, said Peter Ditchfield, the deputy
chief officer of the Organized Crime Agency.

That same raid netted agents $250,000 in U.S. currency and $104,000
in Canadian money.

"It was just lying out on the kitchen table," Ditchfield said. Agents
also found about 2 kilograms of cocaine packaged in a vehicle that
Ditchfield said has been tied to the Hells Angels in Calgary.

On at least one occasion, the helicopter -- which the Sumas Mountain
homeowner kept parked in his back yard -- was used to take an
80-pound marijuana shipment to Washington and then returned with
cocaine bound for Canadian users.

In December, U.S. Customs agents seized another helicopter as it
refueled in Olympia. Customs Special Agent in Charge Rodney Tureaud
said the $400,000 chopper had been paid for with drug money in Texas.

Tureaud said the plan is to give the helicopter to Whatcom County to
aid in drug interdiction.

Agents involved on both sides of the border spoke glowingly of the
cooperation they received from one another. It also demonstrated that
marijuana smugglers are no longer "just a bunch of old harmless
hippies," Begg said.

"These are highly organized criminal operations. They are motivated
and vicious," he said.

"This case and others under way proves what law-enforcement agencies
have long suspected: that the trafficking in British Columbia
marijuana is an extremely lucrative venture," Ditchfield said.

"The proceeds from it are being used to fund other criminal ventures,
such as the importation of other drugs into Canada."