VERDICT ENDS SURFBOARD DRUG SCHEME

Aruba Man Oversaw Smuggling

TAMPA - A jury convicted an Aruba man of masterminding a scheme to smuggle
close to a million dollars' worth of cocaine into Florida hidden in surfboards.

The jury deliberated for about three hours Thursday before finding Laode
Nasirun, 45, guilty of four charges in U.S. District Court. Nasirun faces a
lengthy prison term for convictions on two charges of conspiracy and one
count each of importing cocaine and possession with intent to distribute
the drug.

Authorities were alerted to the operation when two young adults from the
Netherlands, Jurgen Bart and Hendrikje Sempel, were arrested at Tampa
International Airport in 1998. Agents spotted cocaine bricks hidden inside
their windsurfing boards when they were X-rayed. The two were headed to
Miami from Aruba and had a stopover at Tampa, prosecutors said.

Bart and Sempel pleaded guilty to drug charges and agreed to cooperate.
From there, agents worked their way up the ladder, arresting Yasin Beter
of the Netherlands and Nasirun. Beter pleaded guilty to trying to import
drugs and is serving a 12-year sentence.

Assistant U.S. Attorney James Muench compared this case to the novel
``Oliver Twist.'' He said Nasirun used others to recruit teenagers and
young adults in the Netherlands to pose as tourists and smuggle the drugs
into the United States. In the novel, orphaned children were used as
pickpockets while the profits went to adults.

Muench speculated Nasirun, who owned an auto body shop in Aruba, used his
business to build the surfboards, which then were packed with bricks of
cocaine.

Nasirun's attorney, Matthew Farmer, had argued his client was framed in a
crime that he had no part of. Farmer told jurors that Beter, the
government's main witness, lied when he testified that he worked for Nasirun.