60 SEIZED IN 2 U.S. CITIES AND COLOMBIA, DISMANTLING DRUG RING

More than 60 people involved in an international drug trafficking operation
were arrested yesterday in New York, Philadelphia and Colombia, effectively
dismantling the ring after a 20-month investigation, federal law
enforcement officials said.

The organization sent heroin from Colombia to New York, where it was then
distributed to Philadelphia, prosecutors said. Raids yesterday morning
resulted in 65 arrests -- 31 in Colombia, 24 in Philadelphia and 10 in New
York, law enforcement officials said.

Two separate Philadelphia investigations led to several indictments. In the
first investigation, one indictment charged 10 people with a conspiracy to
distribute more than 20 kilograms of heroin in the area, and the second
charged 6 people with running a retail heroin and crack cocaine
distribution organization.

The second investigation lasted 15 months and resulted in the indictments
of 11 people for their roles in a wholesale and retail drug distribution
operation that was run out of a pizzeria.

In Brooklyn, the United States Attorney's office unsealed a complaint
charging 19 people with conspiracy to distribute heroin, with indictments
brought against three of them on the same charges. Three of the defendants
are in Colombia, and five in Aruba.

"We will inevitably be seeking extraditions," a prosecutor said.

The New York part of the main investigation was conducted by the Drug
Enforcement Administration, the United States Customs Service and the
Internal Revenue Service, with assistance provided by the Immigration and
Naturalization Service. In Colombia, officials brought charges after an
investigation by police officials into operations in Pereira and Cartago.

"Thanks to the joint efforts of U.S. and Colombia law enforcement, we wiped
out an entire international heroin trafficking ring," said Donnie R.
Marshall, the drug enforcement administrator, in a written statement.

The source of the drugs was Colombia, where smugglers would swallow packets
of heroin and fly on commercial airlines to New York, with stops in other
countries, Justice Department officials said. The heroin would then be
re-packaged in the United States and sent to three distribution
organizations in New York, who then passed the drugs on to the defendants
in Philadelphia.

The investigation began with one of the Philadelphia distributors, the
authorities said. That uncovered the three organizations in New York.
Telephone calls intercepted through wiretaps in Philadelphia and D.E.A.
surveillance in New York then led to court-authorized wiretaps in New York
over a period of a half year.

Before yesterday's arrests, the investigation had already resulted in 32
arrests and the seizure of 6.5 kilograms of heroin, 0.7 kilograms of crack
and $1,231,000 in United States currency, prosecutors said. Five people
were arrested in October in Aruba when they tried to bring 3.8 kilograms of
heroin to the United States through latex balloons that they had either
swallowed or hidden in the underwear they wore.