ARRESTS CRUSH ARIZ.-MASS. DRUG RING

The drugs, in sealed plastic bundles, flowed through the Boston area
to communities such as Malden, Mass., where traffickers stored and
sold marijuana out of a bowling alley.

Or to Saugus, Mass., where police say one woman helped supply steroids
to her son, a farm team player for the Chicago Cubs.

Authorities say the drugs share a common portal: Arizona.

On Friday, authorities here and in Massachusetts broke up the drug
ring, described as one of the largest distributors in the Boston area.
Police arrested three people in Scottsdale and 19 in Boston, and
seized 1,000 pounds of marijuana in Scottsdale.

"Phoenix is the doorstep of marijuana shipping to the United States,"
said Jim Molesa, a spokesman for the federal Drug Enforcement
Administration.

"We're seeing loads and loads coming not only through Phoenix and
Tucson, but through the rest of Arizona."

Tempe police detectives served search warrants Thursday and found
1,000 pounds of marijuana, which has a street value of about $1
million, along with a "large quantity" of steroids, at a house in the
1000 block of North 78th Street in Scottsdale, said Sgt. Dave Lind, a
police spokesman.

Three suspects were arrested on suspicion of smuggling marijuana and
steroids from Mexico and shipping it to dealers in Boston and its
suburbs, Lind said.

Among those arrested in Massachusetts was William Mosher, 27, a
suspected drug courier from Arizona. The pot was shipped through
overnight delivery services in shrink-wrapped bundles, according to
the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office.

Also arrested in the Bay State was Deborah Tello, 45, of Saugus, who
is accused of providing steroids to her son, Richard Barker, a minor
league pitcher with the Cubs.

John McBride, Tello's lawyer, denied the charges. Barker pitches for
the Iowa Cubs, a Triple-A team in Des Moines.

Authorities say the ring was based in a Malden bowling alley, where
police seized an additional 80 pounds of marijuana, along with
steroids and 2,000 tablets of Percocet, a prescription painkiller.

"We're classifying this as a major drug ring, which was supplying a
large amounts of the marijuana in the Boston area," said Ann Donlan, a
spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Attorney General's Office.

Marijuana sells for about $1,000 a pound in Massachusetts and as much
as $2,000 a pound in some Eastern and Midwestern markets -- several
times the $450 to $650 a pound it commands in Arizona, authorities
say.

Molesa called the Arizona seizure "very significant," but added that
it's not surprising.

Late last year, Phoenix police found 2,700 pounds of marijuana at a
stash house run by a Jamaican gang, he said.

In May, authorities took 500 pounds from another stash house that a
gang used to ship as much as 60 tons of marijuana to New York City,
Molesa said.

And last week, a traffic stop by deputies in Navajo County netted 200
pounds of marijuana destined for Columbus, Ohio, he said. The
trafficker told authorities that he made a similar shipments from
Tucson to Columbus every two weeks, Molesa said.

All three suspects arrested by Tempe police were booked on suspicion
of transporting marijuana for sale. They were identified as Scott
Martin Brannon, 27, of Cottonwood; Kelly Brian Sycks, 35, of
Scottsdale; and Hiram Macario Cardona-Diaz, 20, of Nogales, Sonora.

Cardona-Diaz works in a Nogales pharmacy, according to his booking
slip.

Tempe police started investigating the ring about a year ago, when
some of the suspects lived in Tempe, Lind said.

Molesa said it's commonplace for White drug smugglers to smuggle both
marijuana and steroids.

"There's a whole counterculture who works out in gyms and abuses
steroids" and marijuana, he said.

Some bodybuilders prefer to smoke marijuana rather than drink alcohol,
which makes them fat, Molesa said.

"They've weighed the deficits of both drugs in their minds" and
decided in favor of pot, he said.