HEROIN BUSTS HIT 5 IN DENVER

The operation to deliver drug orders to a customer's door relied
partly on illegal immigrants, and also preyed on recovering drug
addicts, investigators say.

Federal agents nabbed more than 137 suspected drug traffickers in
Denver and 15 other cities Tuesday, trying to break up an
international heroin operation.

The ring used illegal immigrants to sell high-strength heroin with
"pizza-delivery" efficiency, federal agents said.

The Drug Enforcement Administration agents also seized 37 pounds of
heroin and more than $380,000 in cash - including $26,473 in Colorado
- - along with handguns and vehicles.

The kingpins in Mexico remain at large, said Steve Robertson, special
agent in DEA headquarters in Washington, D.C.

Catching them depends on cooperation with Mexican authorities, Robertson said.

"Some of them are on the run now," he said. "We don't know where they
are. They've been known to travel both sides" of the U.S.-Mexico border.

The five men and women arrested in Denver allegedly were part of a
call-and-order, home-delivery operation spanning the metro area, from
fancy homes in Castle Pines to apartments in Aurora, DEA regional
spokeswoman Suzanne Halonen said.

A seven-pound load of heroin seized in Adams County recently ranked
as Colorado's largest in a decade, she said.

More than half those arrested nationwide are illegal immigrants,
authorities said.

"Law enforcement across the country will continue to work diligently
to shut down these operations," U.S. Assistant Attorney General Alice
Fisher said.

DEA agents described an operation in which Mexico-based drug workers
grew and refined poppies, then smuggled an 80-percent-pure brand of
black tar heroin through the area around Nogales, Ariz.

The heroin moved in cars with women and babies, and with migrants
hiking across the border.

A distribution pipeline ran from Nayarit, Mexico, to Nashville, Tenn.

In addition to home delivery, dealers targeted recovering addicts
outside drug treatment centers, Robertson said.

In Colorado, distributors speaking mostly in Spanish and dispatched
from a cellphone ordering center, delivered heroin in pre-packaged
orange, green and blue balloons to a mostly Caucasian clientele, Halonen said.

"They were all Mexican nationals doing the delivering," she said.

"It was like Domino's Pizza. You order it up, and they deliver right
to your doorstep."