POLICE SEIZE 220 POUNDS OF COCAINE

Drug Bust Is One Of State's Largest

A three-year federal drug investigation led to a traffic stop on U.S. 1 in
Wake Forest on
Wednesday and the discovery of 220 pounds of cocaine -- one of North
Carolina's largest drug busts in recent history -- inside a recreational
vehicle and the car being towed behind it.

Federal authorities announced the arrests Thursday of five men
suspected of being members of a drug trafficking ring -- three from
Wake Forest -- in connection with the seizure of 100 individually
wrapped kilogram packets of cocaine.

The seized cocaine may be worth as much as $10 million, using Drug
Enforcement Administration estimates that powder cocaine fetches $100
a gram on North Carolina streets.

Arrested Thursday were Carlos Humberto Zamarripa, Carlos Humberto
Ahmada and Fernando Sanchez-Almaraz, all of Wake Forest; and Juan
Carlos Ruelas and Betram J. Sinclair, both of Phoenix.

All five men, whose addresses and ages were not available, are charged
in federal court with possession of more than five kilograms of
cocaine with intent to distribute, according to court records.

The seizure Wednesday and the arrests Thursday came as part of an
investigation, nicknamed "Operation Pincer," conducted by the
Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force. The operation also
involved DEA agents, state authorities and Raleigh police officers.

As part of the same investigation, agents and the state Highway Patrol
intercepted $648,000 on Aug. 8.

Most cocaine comes to North Carolina as powder, and as much as
three-quarters of it is turned into rocks of the more commonly abused
crack cocaine, according to a drug assessment of North Carolina. In a
1999 national survey, 1.9 percent of North Carolinians said they had
used cocaine in the past year.

(News researcher Lamara Williams-Hackett contributed to this report.)