POLICE BUST U.S.-CANADA DRUG RING THAT MADE $5M US A MONTH

Ecstasy, Pot And Money Laundering Network Based In Ottawa

OTTAWA - A massive drug-trafficking ring based in Ottawa and responsible
for distributing 15 per cent of all the ecstasy sold in the United States
was smashed Wednesday by Canadian and American drug agents, police said.

A two-year investigation culminated in the decimation of the cartel -- 50
people in Ottawa, Toronto and Montreal, and 120 people in the U.S. were
arrested or indicted in a series of co-ordinated raids in both countries.

"The heart of this network was Ottawa," said Gisele Clement, assistant
commander with the RCMP.

"Through real and fictitious agencies, it was able to launder money to fund
other agencies."

Police allege the ring laundered $5 million US a month. Police seized
ecstasy, and $8 million worth of marijuana produced in grow-ops in
middle-class neighbourhoods. The cash was laundered through several businesses.

"The most significant aspect of this is that, in one wave, we were able to
shoot down not just one network, but several networks in the U.S.," said
Clement.

Authorities said the sophisticated smuggling and trafficking operation had
tentacles in 16 U.S. cities as far flung as Los Angeles, New York, Baton
Rouge, La., and Des Moines, Iowa.

"We accomplished what is believed to be the largest single United
States-Canadian enforcement action ever taken against ecstasy traffickers,"
said Karen Tandy, administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration in
the U.S.

Tandy said agents "wiped out this entire organization from the
lowest-level, street-distribution cell to the courier, to the
manufacturers, to the very top of this trafficking pyramid."

The two alleged ringleaders -- Ze Wai Wong of Toronto and Mai Phuong Le of
Ottawa -- face charges in California and New York.

"The Wong/Le organization was a full-blown criminal machine," said Tandy.

"In addition to a huge ecstasy business, this same organization was running
large-scale, high-potency marijuana grow operations in Canada, credit card
fraud, identity theft schemes and illegal gambling," she added.

The indictment alleges Wong organized the distribution and manufacture of
ecstasy pills from a series of clandestine laboratories in the Toronto area.

Canadian police said Wong was in Canada illegally and faces immigration
charges.

The indictments allege Le orchestrated the laundering of drug revenues
through a series of illegal bank transfers between Canada, the U.S., China
and Vietnam.

Le, who police said holds Canadian citizenship, operated under the alias of
"Big Boobs," according to the New York and California indictments.

James Comey, the deputy U.S. attorney general, said traffickers smuggled
ecstasy powder from the Netherlands into Canada, where they were pressed
into pills and shipped into the U.S., often in heat-sealed bags concealed
in the fuel tanks of cars.

Couriers used at least four Canada-U.S. border crossings to smuggle the
drugs into the United States. They used hidden "traps" on vehicles to hide
both ecstasy and cash when they crossed to and from the United States.

Authorities seized $750,000 US from the fuel tank of one Canadian-bound
vehicle in Vermont.

The case also marked the first time Asian traffickers had been implicated
in a large-scale ecstasy ring.

The majority of ecstasy sold in the U.S. has, in the past, been smuggled
into the country already in pill form by organized crime rings based in
former Soviet Union states.

"It is a signal to us that, as we feared, the profits available on ecstasy
a re attracting new traffickers and new ways of trafficking," Comey said.

"It is the first time that we have discovered a massive ecstasy pill
production operation in North America.

"It is also significant because we have dismantled a large ecstasy
organization run by Asian traffickers, something else we haven't seen before."

Police seized 500,000 ecstasy pills during the raids, 250 ecstasy dies, six
pill presses and more than $6 million US.

The New York indictment against Wong and Le alleges the defendants
manufactured more than $25 million worth of ecstasy pills.