DRUG CASE TEAMS SHARE $47 MILLION

Crime, they say, does not pay -- a moral truism, but undeniably
there's money in it.

Take the earnings of Colombian drug smuggler Julio Cesar Nasser-David
and his former wife, Arana -- $47 million and change -- which were
given Wednesday to 11 Florida police agencies, the Customs Service and
the IRS.

That's scarcely a fourth of all the cash, about $200 million,
confiscated by the U.S. and Swiss governments from the
Nasser-Davids.

Proportionately, the biggest shares -- $13,097,597.38 each -- went to
the Boca Raton police and Customs.

They investigated the case together from beginning to end, said
Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Pelletier, the lead prosecutor:

``They seized a freighter, the Nerma, in June 1988 that was loaded
with cocaine. It landed at Boca Raton. It was a Danish freighter that
was purchased by Nasser. They carried legitimate freight as well and
had a legitimate captain and mostly Danish crew members. The Danish
people prosecuted every Dane that had been on that ship, 30 or 40 of
them.''

The Nassers were held responsible for smuggling about three million
pounds of marijuana and 55,000 pounds of cocaine from northern
Colombia to southern and central Florida between 1975 and 1981, and
for running their drug money through bank accounts here to other
accounts in Switzerland.

Now they're in prison, he in Colombia and she in the United
States.

U.S. Attorney Guy A. Lewis handed out the checks in Miami to the law
enforcement beneficiaries about two years later than most of them had
hoped to get them. They were dreaming of a green Christmas when the
United States and Switzerland agreed Dec. 18, 1998, to go halfsies on
the $200 million.

It took a lot longer, because such a large forfeiture required
attention much higher up the Justice Department's chain of command
than most other cases, Pelletier said, and Switzerland also had to
deal with unaccustomed red tape.

On Wednesday, the last loose end was tied in a bow, and the money was
distributed. The Miami-Dade County police got $8,731,731.59. The IRS
got $4,365,865.79. The Lake County sheriff's office was awarded
$873,173.16. A task force of eight Orlando area police departments
will share $7 million.

After all of the distributions are made, the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration will get what's left -- probably $50 million plus,
Pelletier said.

The Boca Raton share is a huge windfall, equal to about 75 percent of
that department's annual budget, Pelletier said.

James Burke, a Boca detective when the investigation started and a
captain now, attended the ceremony with Chief Andrew Scott. Apparently
the thought of carrying so much money around made them ill at ease.

``They walked down to the First Union Bank and deposited it right
away,'' Pelletier said.