20 ARE ARRESTED IN A DRUG CRACKDOWN IN SEATTLE AREA

Federal agents and local police arrested 20 people in the Seattle area
yesterday morning on charges of selling and conspiring to sell heroin,
methamphetamine and crack cocaine.

The operation, dubbed "Conquistador" by the Drug Enforcement
Administration, has so far led to indictments against 36 people, about 16
of whom are still at large.

About 20 people associated with the alleged drug traffickers, but not
charged in the case, are being held by the Immigration and Naturalization
Service as illegal aliens.

The investigation, which used wiretaps and undercover informants, revealed
the presence of "a major Seattle-area heroin trafficking organization,
known as the Nava-Banuelos Organization," according to a complaint filed by
Drug Enforcement Administration special agent Tom Varvitsiotis.

Many of those appearing in court yesterday are members of the Nava- anuelos
family, which hails from Mexico's Michoacan region, an area notorious for
drug trafficking.

The alleged conspirators are believed to have smuggled the black tar heroin
across the border in vehicles with hidden compartments, said Assistant U.S.
Attorney Doug Whalley.

Although it is unclear how much heroin was moved by the Nava-Banuelos
organization, Whalley said, "We think it was multikilogram quantities."

But a complaint filed by Varvitsiotis indicates that the scope of the
operation might be smaller.

The "family-based heroin trafficking organization . . . distributes
multi-ounce quantities of heroin to a number of local dealers," according
to the complaint.

During pre-dawn raids yesterday, federal agents and local police fanned out
across the region and executed about 40 search warrants.

The investigation began in January 1999, when DEA agents were deployed in
Lewis County "to target a loosely-knit local organization of black tar
heroin traffickers."

The source of heroin turned out to be the Seattle-area trafficking
organization, according to Varvitsiotis.

Investigators made controlled buys of heroin using several confidential
sources and a DEA undercover agent.

Using wiretaps, agents intercepted hundreds of drug-related phone calls in
which the participants used coded language in Spanish that at times was so
obscure that they did not even understand each other, said Whalley.

Members of the organization spoke to middlemen who ordered quantities of
drugs with names such as "five window panes" or "four dark ladies," he said.

As the scope of the operation grew, Seattle Police pitched in with officers
to conduct surveillance details. At 4 a.m. yesterday, police and agents
began executing the first of the warrants.

Most of them were in greater Seattle, said Whalley, but search warrants
also were executed in Portland and Eastern Washington.

U.S. Attorney Kate Pflaumer said the goal of such investigations "is to
reduce the number of deaths caused by heroin overdoses in western Washington."