(After a cple of false starts I think I've got it right this time. pd)

VALLEY: 'AMERICA'S STASH HOUSE'

When Valentin Perez and Robert Schweiger stepped off the plane from Des
Moines, Iowa, they were trailed by four drug cops who had received a tip.

Now federal prosecutors say the two men were couriers in Phoenix's booming
and dangerous trade in illegal drugs, which every year draws thousands of
buyers from around the country.

An agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration said the traffic has made
Phoenix the country's largest marijuana distribution center.

"This is the country's marijuana stash house," said Tom Raffanello, head of
the DEA's Phoenix office. He said traffic in methamphetamine and cocaine is
also steady, but not as intense as the marijuana trade.

The story of how Perez and Schweiger were arrested at the airport in May
was laid out this week in U.S. District Court, as prosecutors filed papers
for the forfeiture of $14,695 that was taken from Perez.

Prosecutors reject Perez's claim that he won the money gambling, saying
they found equipment used in packaging drugs in his baggage. They also said
that he made a series of contradictory statements to investigators, that he
has ties to known drug dealers and that a DEA investigation indicated he
was "obtaining drugs from Arizona and selling them in Iowa."

Raffanello said Perez and Schweiger are two of "dozens" of couriers who fly
into Phoenix every day from across the country to make deals for marijuana
that is smuggled across the Mexican border less than 200 miles to the south.

The money often changes hands in a hotel or motel, he said, and
arrangements are made for the contraband to be shipped.

Raffanello said the drug traffickers like to move their product out of town
quickly.

"They know that the way the cops will get you is if you get sloppy and
leave it in one spot for a long time," he said.

Last month, Phoenix police seized nearly 3,000 pounds of marijuana in a
south Phoenix stash house after its telltale odor drifted across the
neighborhood and a resident called police, said Lt. Al Thiele of the police
Drug Enforcement Bureau.

"They had been running it up from the border, packaging it there, and then
taking it back to New York in rental cars -- 600 or 700 pounds per load,"
said Thiele.

The volume of the marijuana seized at the south Phoenix house offers a look
at how lucrative a large drug operation can be.

Raffanello says a single pound of marijuana that a Mexican smuggler will
sell in Phoenix for $400 can be wholesaled in the Midwest for about $1,200.

"There's big money in this, and people are doing it here big time," he
said. "There are literally tons of pot that are smuggled across the border
every year."

Raffanello said the big-dollar lure of the drug trade involves risks that
can be deadly. He points to a Florida man who came to Phoenix early this
year, trying to track a neighbor's son who had come here with friends to
put together a dope deal.

"The trail died at their hotel room," Raffanello said. "They never came
back to the hotel, and they haven't been seen since. It's not trustworthy
people who deal drugs, and there's a lot of desert out there."

Copyright 1998, The Arizona Republic

Checked-by: Pat Dolan