BABIES PART OF THE FORMULA IN DRUG SMUGGLING, FEDS SAY

A major Panama-to-Chicago drug-smuggling operation used infants and mothers
as decoys to smuggle liquid cocaine hidden inside formula cans past U.S.
Customs officials, federal charges unveiled Friday reveal.

Officials said drug smugglers "rented" the babies or aggressively recruited
young mothers to bring their infants with them as they acted as couriers.

At a press conference, veteran drug-fighting investigators expressed shock
and outrage at the smugglers' brazen use of babies to deflect the suspicion
of Customs inspectors at airports.

"After 25 years of investigating drug smuggling, just when you think you've
seen it all, you run across an investigation such as this," said Nick Berg,
special agent in charge of the U.S. Customs Service in Chicago.

"This is a new one on me too," U.S. Atty. Scott Lassar told reporters. "It
does raise very serious questions about the parents that would lease their
babies to be used in such a dangerous fashion. Who knew if the babies would
ever be returned or not?

"It's an extremely disturbing case."

So far, authorities have identified 13 infants used in the smuggling
operation this year, but the number is expected to increase as the probe
expands, officials said.

One 7-month-old baby was used as a diversionary tactic on five overseas
trips, Berg said.

The trips were lucrative, officials said -- a single 16-ounce formula can
contained as much as $700,000 worth of liquid cocaine.

Smugglers removed baby formula from the cans, using a hypodermic needle,
before inserting the liquid cocaine.

Once delivery was completed, the drugs were turned into crack cocaine and
distributed in Chicago, officials said.

Authorities caught on to the ruse after one mother reported her infant
missing to Chicago police.

The mother had lent or rented the baby to her baby-sitter for a smuggling
trip, but she became concerned when the baby hadn't been returned after a
week, authorities said.

Federal officials soon discovered that they had the baby-sitter -- as well
as the infant -- in custody in Atlanta, where she had been arrested for
trying to smuggle narcotics from Panama.

On Friday, authorities disclosed an indictment against the alleged
ringleader, Paul A. Kelly, 38, of South Holland; an alleged associate,
Tabitha Hylton, 26, of Chicago, and an alleged courier, Latrece Gayden, 18,
of Chicago.

Kelly and Hylton were charged in the drug-smuggling conspiracy, while
Gayden was accused of lying to federal agents about the conspiracy.

A fourth defendant, Latashua Roberson, 20, of Chicago pleaded guilty
Thursday in federal court in Chicago to charges she imported heroin as a
courier.

In addition, another alleged courier, Kim Washington, 36, of Chicago, was
arrested earlier this week on charges of conspiring to import heroin and
cocaine from Panama.

In another related case, Hope Shaw, 20, of Chicago, pleaded guilty in
Dallas and was recently sentenced to three years in prison for her work as
a courier for the drug operation.

The defendants already face stiff prison terms if convicted because of the
amount of cocaine and heroin smuggled, but their punishment could be even
harsher because of their misuse of the infants, Lassar said.

The fact that drug dealers use children isn't anything new, according to
Chicago Police Cmdr. Phil Cline, who joined federal authorities at a news
conference Friday.

Just that morning, police officers had made arrests in a street operation
in which children allegedly were used to hold the narcotics as adult
dealers sold it to customers on street corners.

"But the fact that people would use other people's babies . . . to smuggle
cocaine and heroin from outside the country is very significant," Cline said.

The indictment charged that Kelly directed the couriers to bring infants
with them to Panama so that when they returned to Chicago with the
cocaine-filled Similac baby-formula cans it "would not appear suspicious."

Kelly wanted the couriers to "appear to be innocent, young mothers, thus
minimizing the chance of being stopped by law enforcement officers," the
indictment said.

Gayden was still a juvenile when she allegedly traveled to Panama with her
infant son and brought back three cans of cocaine at Kelly's direction,
charges alleged.

Mothers delivered as many as five cans of the liquid cocaine at one time.

Lassar wouldn't say whether any charges would be brought against mothers
who didn't act as couriers but who allowed their babies to be used in the
smuggling operation. "But we're definitely looking at where the babies came
from," he said.

Berg said that so far investigators have seized 44 pounds of cocaine and up
to 15 pounds of heroin in connection with the smuggling operation.

The heroin was hidden in the formula cans or on the women's bodies for
their return trips from Panama, according to authorities and court filings.

At Roberson's guilty pleading Thursday, Assistant U.S. Atty. Scott Levine
said that Roberson had been promised $2,500 in cash and a car for smuggling
more than a half-pound of heroin.

Roberson took her baby with her on the trip, and another undisclosed
courier used Roberson's baby as a decoy on a separate trip, according to
her plea agreement.

According to another government filing, Washington and her mother acted as
couriers on four trips, all with infants belonging to others.