DRUG KINGPIN JAILED FOR LIFE

Huge Colombian network sent cocaine to Charlotte

A drug-smuggling network that steered hundreds of kilograms of Colombian
cocaine to Charlotte suffered a heavy blow Monday when a federal judge
sentenced its leader to life in prison without parole.

U.S. District Judge Samuel Wilson sentenced Juan Bautista Alomia-Torres, 35,
for federal drug and money-laundering crimes. A federal jury in Charlotte
had convicted Alomia-Torres in October.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Higdon said Alomia-Torres' operation, loosely
known as "The Line," smuggled between 300 and 400 kilos of cocaine from 1989
until he was indicted in May 1997. The drugs had a street value of up to $20
million, Higdon said.

The huge operation, according to one witness, sent at least 200 kilos into
Charlotte between 1991 and 1996.

Higdon said other drug-dealing groups may have moved more drugs through
North Carolina in the past, but few have been as far-flung as this one,
which used ports in Charleston, Wilmington, Houston, New York, Tampa, New
Orleans and Baltimore to import its illegal merchandise.

"It was certainly one of the largest in terms of geographic size and
impact," Higdon said. "It really does give us an inkling that more is going
on in Western North Carolina than meets the eye. Groups like the Colombians
are here, and they are active."

Higdon said Alomia-Torres came to the U.S. in 1985 as an illegal immigrant
stowaway aboard a ship from Colombia.

Alomia-Torres moved to Winston-Salem, where he lived with others in plain
houses and apartments and drove nondescript cars, Higdon said. From bases in
Winston-Salem, Atlanta and Houston, the group sent drugs flowing throughout
North Carolina, Georgia and Texas.

Higdon said by the time authorities indicted Alomia-Torres in May 1997,
police had run into members of his group in South Carolina, Louisiana,
Alabama and Mississippi. The group even used a fleet of vehicles rigged with
hidden compartments to transport cocaine and thousands of dollars of drug
proceeds.

Evidence presented at Alomia-Torres' trial in October showed that he
recruited all the members of "The Line" from his Colombian hometown of
Buenavista, a seaport. Some walked across the border into the United States;
some came as stowaways in boats.

Authorities said the name of the organization came from its belief that none
of its members "breaks the Line" and cooperates with police.

"They had a common goal, a common background, a common understanding,"
Higdon said. "They worked together."

Fifteen other defendants were indicted with Alomia-Torres.

Seven of Alomia-Torres' codefendants have been sentenced. Six are in prison,
serving terms from four years to 13 years. Three others are awaiting
sentencing. Four are fugitives. Another is being prosecuted in Texas and the
charges in Charlotte have been dismissed.

Alomia-Torres' empire began crumbling on Dec. 9, 1996, when
Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officers got a tip about a man transporting
drugs. They stopped a red Pontiac in the 2200 block of Beatties Ford Road.
Inside, they found Bruce Elliott Little, a 35-year-old Charlotte resident,
and 95 grams of cocaine, Higdon said.

Little agreed to cooperate with police. At his home, officers found 109 more
grams of cocaine, Higdon said. Little agreed to contact his source, whom he
knew only as "John."

Little arranged to buy 18 ounces of cocaine for $15,000 at a hotel in
Charlotte off Interstate 77, Higdon said. Police arrested the two men who
came to make the sale, and they found Alomia-Torres in the parking lot.

One of the men began outlining the international scope of the network.
Agents from the U.S. Customs Service and U.S. Immigration and Naturalization
Service then took over the investigation, assisted by agents from the
Internal Revenue Service, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police and the federal Drug
Enforcement Administration.

"It was just basically good police work," Higdon said, "incredibly good
police work, putting it all together piece by piece."