FIVE HOUSTONIANS AMONG 98 ARRESTED IN FEDERAL DRUG PROBE

Federal lawmen arrested 98 people Tuesday, including five in Houston, in the
breakup of an alleged drug-smuggling ring stretching from El Paso to the
Northeast.

The government's year-long investigation in 14 cities, dubbed Operation
Southwest Express, also led to the seizure of $1.15 million in cash, 2,727
kilograms of cocaine and 4,158 pounds of marijuana.

The FBI called the ring one of the top 20 drug distribution networks in the
country.

The arrests began Monday night in San Diego with Omar Rocha Soto, the ring's
alleged leader, and his wife, Adriana Espinoza. Federal agents also arrested
the three leaders of the organization's El Paso base, brothers Daniel, Raul
and Angel Sotello-Lopez, the FBI said.

The ring relied on trucks, trains and cars to circulate several tons of
cocaine and marijuana to distributors in Chicago, Cleveland, New York,
Nashville and Boston. The drugs were smuggled from Mexico, South America and
Southeast Asia, the FBI said.

Police in Houston raided two businesses Tuesday as part of the operation and
arrested five Houston-area residents.

About $280,000 in cash, a Land Rover and two Ferraris were seized after
raids on a Texaco gas station at 7050 Southwest Freeway and at Madison Auto,
located at Hillcroft and Bellaire.

Bassam "Sam" Khalil Farhat, 35, Steven Foufic Timani, 32, Courtney Brian
Cunningham, 22, Luis Hernando Melendez, 36, and Jose Santana, 28, were
indicted on charges of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute in
excess of five kilograms of cocaine since May 1998. Authorities would not
release the men's addresses or photographs of them.

Farhat and Timani also were charged with money laundering.

"Were they cartel leaders? No," said Drug Enforcement Administration special
agent Ernest Howard. "But they were heads of cells."

Federal officials suggested Rocha-Soto in San Diego coordinated the
trafficking; members of the Sotelo-Lopez family in El Paso transported the
drugs to Chicago and Boston; and Farhat and Timani in Houston were
responsible for transportation and distribution of cocaine to New York.

"They are much more than mules," said Houston Police Department Lt. Gray D.
Smith, part of the federal and local High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area
operation.

"These were not (drug) users. They were businesspeople. Junkies don't drive
Ferraris," Smith said.

Officials said large trucks were used to transport the drugs in Houston and
the cargo was placed in "stash houses" around the city before distribution.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Ken Magidson said investigators were helped by a
"rare occurrence" -- the use of a roving wiretap to track a number of
cellular phones used in the drug transactions. Typically, a wiretap is
sanctioned for a specific telephone line, not to follow a person as they use
different wireless equipment from week to week.

"Major drug traffickers have high technology. They have faxes, e-mail, cell
phones, and we need the tools to fight that," he said.

"This investigation has resulted in a major disruption of the flow of drugs
from the Southwest border throughout the United States and the dismantlement
of a major international drug-trafficking network," FBI Director Louis Freeh
said in Washington. "Operation Southwest Express is unique in the fact that
it identified, disrupted and dismantled a drug organization from its sources
in the Southwest United States to its street-level drug dealers."

Assistant FBI Director Thomas Pickard described the drug ring as an equal
opportunity criminal network.

"This organization that was disrupted today embraced the American capitalist
idea and would sell any type of drug for a profit," he said. "It did not
discriminate in its dealings with any other drug organizations."

The FBI said arrests, seizures or other operations also occurred in Lufkin;
Chicago; La Salle, Ill.; Cleveland; Dayton, Ohio; Allentown, Pa.; New York;
Albany, N.Y.; Nashville; and Atlanta.

Chronicle reporter Steve Lash in Washington contributed to this story.