FAR-REACHING DRUG BUSTS SET DEA RECORDS

WASHINGTON - Federal agents arrested 2,257 people and seized a half-billion
dollars in drugs and drug-making chemicals in a 17-day, 26-country series
of raids.

They're calling it the largest operation in the 26-year history of the Drug
Enforcement Administration.

Military and law enforcement authorities in the Caribbean and Central and
South American countries began the 7,376 raids at 6 a.m. March 10. The last
was conducted Sunday.

The operation, announced Wednesday in San Juan, Puerto Rico, involved more
countries and personnel than any previous DEA operation. It took about a
year to plan and involved several thousand people.

The raids destroyed 94 cocaine labs and coca plant fields with a production
potential of 25,415 kilograms of cocaine.

Authorities seized 4,640 kilograms of cocaine, 55.6 kilograms of heroin,
14.3 kilograms of morphine base, 362.5 metric tons of marijuana and 100.7
metric tons of sodium carbonate, used in refining cocaine. (A kilogram is
about 2.2 pounds, and a metric ton is 2,204 pounds.) They also took 159
vehicles, 77 weapons, 17,235 rounds of ammunition and $75,072 in U.S.
currency.

Officials couldn't say whether the raids set a record in quantity or value
of drugs seized. However, this month's raids involved more than 10 times
the amount of marijuana the DEA seized in the United States in 1998, the
last year for which totals are available.

Michael Vigil, the DEA special agent in charge of the Caribbean Field
Division, said the cost of a kilogram of cocaine in the Caribbean has risen
from $8,000 to $25,000 since the raids began to cut supplies. Having 26
countries working together in an operation has created "a tremendous amount
of disruption," he said.

DEA officials estimate that 33% of the cocaine produced in South America
comes through the Caribbean into the United States. The countries
participating in the raids were: Anguilla, Antigua, Aruba, Barbados,
Barbuda, Bolivia, the British Virgin Islands, Colombia, Curacao, Dominica,
Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Grenada, Haiti, Jamaica, Montserrat, Nevis,
Panama, Puerto Rico, St. Kitts, St. Lucia, St. Maarten, St. Vincent,
Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela.