BUSTED!

Police swept through Vancouver's downtown east side yesterday, arresting
suspected drug dealers in an operation dubbed Project Scoop.

Some 76 people have been charged after a 15-day undercover operation aimed
at rock-cocaine dealers around Hastings and Main and Hastings and Abbott.

Late last night 36 of those had been arrested. More than 20 others were
picked up outside of the Project Scoop operation.

``We targeted specific problem locations and we simply bought from people
who were trafficking in drugs,'' said Vancouver police Staff-Sgt. Doug
MacKay-Dunn.

``Of the people charged we have 25 actual Canadians. The majority of the
remainder are Hondurans, with some Orientals.''

A total of 35 police from Vancouver, four from New Westminster and two
Burnaby RCMP officers, as well as three immigration officers, headed out at
noon yesterday to round up the suspected dealers charged with 91 offences.

Fingerprints on the immigration department's database will be compared with
fingerprints police gather to determine what names those arrested are using.

Police will ask the courts to impose a large ``no-go zone'' on those
arrested, meaning they will not be able to relocate to other municipalities
to deal drugs. The program, dubbed SODA, ``Stay out of Drug Areas,'' was
used successfully in Portland, Ore., against an influx of Honduran dealers.

``It was not our intention to drive drug traffickers out of Vancouver and
into other municipalities,'' said Insp. Gary Greer.

MacKay-Dunn said the operation was ``done on a shoestring. We had an
extremely limited budget and very limited staffing. If we had more people
and more money we would have done five times as many people.''

He said the rock dealers are well organized and aggressive.

``It was like Marketing 101,'' he said. ``One person would identify the
customer and then point the customer to a person who was actually
dispensing the drug,'' he said.

Once the drug was paid for, the dispenser would turn the money over to
another person, the cashier.

``Once the dispenser ran out of the five rocks he was holding, he would go
to another person who was holding the majority of the inventory,''
MacKay-Dunn explained.

``There is also a network of lookouts. We call it the Downtown Early
Warning System, or DEW Line. Some of them are on bicycles.''

Some dealers would hand off their cash to Hastings Street businesses where
it would be held under the counter.

MacKay-Dunn theorized that the dealers let the businesses hold their cash
so police can't seize it if they are arrested.

``Those businesses have been identified and we'll be following up,'' he said.

The Hondurans in particular were ``extremely sophisticated,'' often
spelling each other off.

``The majority of people we are dealing with here are professional drug
dealers,'' said Greer. ``They are not user-traffickers. They are here
making profits out of the misery of others.''

And MacKay-Dunn said the problem has spread into the community at large.

``We have seen a number of incidents where Canadian juvenile girls are
being used as the mules. In one case an officer actually saw them going
into the bra of one of the young girls and remove the drugs. It has an
impact on the larger community.''

Project Scoop was ``your traditional undercover operation,'' said MacKay-Dunn.

Police officers, dressed as cocaine users, made buys as up to six
``guardian'' police watched. The buyer would wander away, as would the
dealer, to be scooped later.