CALIFORNIA-BASED DRUG RING HAD BROAD REACH IN ISLANDS

A month ago, the caretaker's house at He`eia Kea State Park spilled
over with the trappings of success.

There were vintage hot rods, Harley-Davidson motorcycles, boats, Jet
Skis and shiny sport utility vehicles.

Most seemed out of reach for someone earning $2,000 a month raking
leaves and mopping floors.

But Louis Ferreira Jr. had a passion for "the big boys'
toys."

All the toys are gone now, seized by law enforcement officials Jan.
28, the same day Ferreira, 45, and Donovan Pantastico, 29, of Ewa
Beach, were arrested on federal charges of conspiring to distribute
large amounts of cocaine and crystal methamphetamine.

Theirs were the latest in a series of arrests that began last June in
Orange County, Calif. Federal prosecutors believe that the two Hawaii
men were on the receiving end of $1 million a month in illicit drugs,
most of it crystal methamphetamine, shipped here in Harley-Davidson
motorcycles and their packing crates.

Many of the details behind the drug operation remain sealed in court
records in California. But interviews with investigators and
information pieced together from what public records are available
reveal an ambitious enterprise that was broad in scope and apparently
unrivaled in the number of Hawaii residents it counted as steady customers.

Seven others indicted in the case have already worked out plea
agreements with federal prosecutors, including Bryan Ray Kazarian, 35,
a former deputy district attorney for Orange County, accused of
supplying inside information to the suspected drug
traffickers.

Pantastico and Ferreira are scheduled to go to trial in Santa Ana,
Calif., this fall with six other defendants, most notable among them
Howard Irvine Coones, 44, founder of the Orange County chapter of the
Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, and David Ward, 28, of Orange, Calif.,
the purported kingpin of the operation.

Federal prosecutors contend it was in Coones' Santa Ana, Calif., shop,
"The Big Red Machine," that an average of 120 pounds of
methamphetamine and 60 pounds of cocaine were loaded in motorcycles
and their packing crates and shipped to Hawaii each month.

Ward, in fact, was arrested in California just days after returning
from Hawaii after paying a visit to Ferreira and Pantastico,
investigators said.

"Our office got involved in July of 1998 at the request of the police
department in Downey, Calif., whose members were part of a federal
task force working in conjunction with the Santa Ana FBI office," said
Ed Howard, supervising investigator for the Narcotics Enforcement
Division of the state Department of Public Safety.

Ferreira's wife, Sandra, directed requests for comment about the case
to Ferreira's lawyer in California, who did not respond.

State narcotics investigators were already familiar with Ferreira and
Pantastico, Howard said.

"Our narcotics intelligence gathering activities turned up those names
along with allegations that they were obtaining drugs from the
Mainland," Howard said.

Oahu suspects tailed

At the FBI's request, state Narcotics Enforcement officers put
together detailed background checks on the two, began "running
surveilance" on them and also kept track of Ward on his three visits
here shortly before his arrest, Howard said.

"We sat right outside his Sheraton Waikiki Hotel room and watched him
make calls on his cell phone," Howard said.

While state investigators had long been aware of allegations that
Ferreira and Pantastico were involved in drug smuggling, hard evidence
was tough to come by, Howard said.

"There are only two ways drugs can come here -- by air and by sea.
Anything that comes in over the waterfront is virtually untouched.
It's a lack of resources and lack of accessibility. Our ability to do
an operation on the waterfront before word gets out is extremely
limited," Howard said.

But the FBI had a powerful investigative tool, one off-limits to state
law enforcement officials: wiretaps. Recorded telephone conversations
were cited in the indictments against Ferreira and Pantastico.

In the first conversation, on Feb. 10, 1999, Ferreira explained to
Ward that he had come up with only $100,000 of the $160,000 owed Ward
from drug sales in Hawaii, according to the indictment.

In a second recorded telephone conversation, Ward told Pantastico he
was arranging a shipment of illegal drugs to Hawaii, according to the
indictment.

More arrests possible

Howard said investigators know of others in Hawaii who they believe
were associated with the same alleged drug distribution ring but have
not been able to "corroborate evidence" against them.

"If there are going to be more arrests in this case, they will
probably come out of Santa Ana," Howard said. "They identified
Ferreira and Pantastico as significant players, and will take the lead
on any other arrests."

Without question, the amount of drugs that officials believe the Santa
Ana group shipped to Hawaii each week was substantial, investigators
said.

Howard said the extent of the alleged Santa Ana drug distribution ring
and the amounts involved are reminiscent of the drug empire operated
by Frank Moon, which flourished in the early 1990s.

At its peak, Moon's drug ring was considered the most extensive ever
uncovered in Hawaii. Officials estimate that during the two-year
period, Moon's ring brought 200 pounds of cocaine and 100 to 200
pounds of crystal meth to Hawaii.

"The Santa Ana thing is interesting because I think it represents a
real extensive, organized crime group at a time when everybody has
been splintering off into little groups," Howard said.

But as significant as the Santa Ana ring may have been, removing its
supply of cocaine and crystal meth from the Hawaii market has had
little measurable impact.

"We're at the point now where we92re up against tons of individuals or
two-or three-man operations that are bringing in drugs. Put them all
together, and they are just as significant or perhaps more significant
than a single operation bringing in 30 pounds of meth a week," Howard
said.

Crystal meth epidemic

Meanwhile, other drug experts here said that if the allegations made
by the informant who broke open the Santa Ana case are correct, enough
crystal meth was being shipped to Hawaii each week by just the one
group to meet the weekly needs of nearly 3,900 hard-core meth users or
more than 19,000 entry-level users.

Hawaii law enforcement officials believe there are approximately
30,000 hard-core methamphetamine users in Hawaii today. Health
officials say its use has reached "epidemic levels" in several
communities on Oahu, including the Waianae Coast, Waipahu and Kalihi.

And even with the arrests last summer in California of key suspects in
the Santa Ana case, street prices for crystal meth remained constant
as did the demand for treatment services.

Those are indicators that supplies of the highly addictive drug are
plentiful, even if the alleged Southern California-based drug ring was
shut down, county, state and federal narcotics experts said.

No law enforcement agency has ever attempted to establish the amount
of crystal meth consumed in Hawaii each week.

Maj. Susan Dowsett, head of the Honolulu Police Department's
Narcotics/Vice Division, said her officers use street price, arrest
statistics and number of current investigations to gauge
methamphetamine availability.

"Cases and arrests have been stable, and the price has remained pretty
stable, as well, over the past year or so," Dowsett said.

Tom Kelly, who heads the Drug Enforcement Administration office in
Honolulu, said the 30-pounds-a-week amount claimed by the informant
"sounds like an exceptionally large amount" given Hawaii's population.

"But it is quite possible that some of that could have been
transshipped some place else," Kelly said.

DEA investigators believe crystal meth, at times, travels through
Honolulu "and then on to Guam, Saipan, Australia and some to the
Neighbor Islands," Kelly said.

"We're even finding that some of the meth that passes through here
winds up in Vancouver, Canada," Kelly said.

Hawaii was identified last year by federal officials as one of 31
"high-intensity drug trafficking areas" throughout the country and is
to receive $1 million in federal money this year to crack down on
methamphetamine traffickers.

More arrests?

Assistant U.S. Attorney James Spertus, who is prosecuting the case in
California against the alleged Santa Ana drug ring, will say little
beyond what is contained in open court records.

Whether there will be additional arrests in Hawaii or elsewhere of
others suspected of being involved in the ring "is the $64 million
question," Spertus said.

He would not comment directly on the long delay between arrests. The
first suspects were arrested in California in early June last year,
Ferreira and Pantastico in late January this year.

An affidavit attached to the indictments handed down against the two
Hawaii men may answer the delay question and shed more light on their
involvement in the alleged ring, Spertus said. But at his request, the
federal court in Santa Ana has ordered the affidavit sealed.

The Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register filed a court
request to have the affidavit unsealed, but the request was denied.

"The court agreed with us that there are compelling reasons to keep it
sealed," Spertus said.

By his estimate, based upon what the informant told investigators, the
suspected members of the Santa Ana ring allegedly shipped to Hawaii
"hundreds if not thousands of pounds" of crystal meth.