RAID SNARES $2 MILLION IN DRUGS, NETS GUN SILENCERS

What began two years ago as a tip to Bellevue police of suspected drug
activity in a quiet neighborhood culminated late last year in a multiagency
crackdown on what authorities described yesterday as one of the largest
drug rings in the Puget Sound region.

In all, a dozen men have been arrested; about $2 million in cocaine, heroin
and other drugs has been seized; and a ring that manufactured illegal gun
silencers has been ferreted out and thwarted.

Authorities unveiled the details yesterday as the fruits of an
investigation that began in June 1999 with the work of a single Bellevue
narcotics detective and ended in December with massive raids in five area
cities that involved 175 law enforcement officers.

"This is a monumental case," said Bellevue police Detective John Manning,
who worked the case as a member of a local task force under direction of
the federal Drug Enforcement Agency.

"It's probably one of the top 10 busts (in Washington) in the last year."

All of the suspects are in federal custody awaiting trial.

Yesterday's announcement of the "Operation Cuban Cookie" crackdown came a
day after the arrest of a 56-year-old Juanita man believed to be the final
area fugitive of the alleged drug ring.

Authorities say they are still searching for at least three others
connected to the ring in other parts of the country, however.

With ties as far away as Miami, the "Cuban Cookie" ring -- named because
most of its members were Cuban men whose drug of choice, crack cocaine,
resembles cookies when packaged in ounces -- infiltrated at least five area
cities, from Tacoma to the Eastside to Everett, authorities say.

The group consisted largely of an extended family of Cuban immigrants who
had been known to dabble in the drug trade, authorities say. Six years
earlier, federal agents busted a similar crack-cocaine ring involving other
relatives of the same family in Miami.

Aside from crack, the group also distributed powder cocaine, heroin,
methamphetamine and marijuana, and illegally manufactured silencers for guns.

As part of their seizures, law enforcement officers confiscated 75 such
silencers, as well as 18 firearms, from ring members, authorities say.

The case germinated from a tip in June 1999, when a Bellevue resident told
police that a high number of people were coming and going from neighbor's
house.

A local DEA task force eventually picked up the case and worked with FBI
agents and local law enforce-ment officials to identify a large quantity of
drug sales in Tacoma, Seattle, Everett, Kirkland, Bothell and Bellevue.

Although authorities were working their way further up the hierarchy of the
alleged drug ring and uncovering more ties to criminal activity, officials
said yesterday they elected to take down the ring after violence against
its members escalated.

In October, the ring's alleged leader, Juan Carlos Gato-Cabado, was shot to
death in his West Seattle home.