DEALERS WORKED TO HOOK YOUNG PEOPLE, AGENTS SAY

Like samples in a supermarket, the heroin was free when Salvador Pineda
Contreras and his Mexican associates began distributing it in the Plano
area, officials said.

The money would come later. First, they had to get young people hooked. Then
they would own this lucrative, wide-open market.

"That was a virgin territory," said Julio Mercado, special agent in charge
of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's Dallas Field Division. "They
went there because they didn't have to compete against distributors.

"There was no middle man," Mercado said. "That's why the price was so cheap
and the purity so high."

Every weekend for months, a drug "mule" arrived from Mexico, loaded with
pure black tar heroin, according to court documents. Often, the drug was in
the heels of shoes or boots, records state.

Once entrenched in Plano and McKinney, the distributors extended their
operation into other states, court documents state.

They were at the top of a heroin distribution network that sent hundreds of
ounces onto North Texas streets until the network was busted in November.
Contreras and two other men were sentenced last month for distributing the
drug. Until now, that was the typical charge in such prosecutions.

Yesterday, they were among defendants charged in the federal indictment with
being responsible for the deaths of four young people who got hooked.

Ecliserio Martinez Garcia, 38, arranged for shipments to McKinney from his
home state of Guerrero, Mexico, a major heroin center, officials said.

Garcia, Contreras, 26, and Contreras' brother, Jose Antonio Pineda, 22, used
a McKinney house three blocks from the Collin County Courthouse as a milling
center, diluting the narcotic, then distributing it as far away as Atlanta,
court records state.

Their network worked like a pyramid marketing scheme, authorities said
yesterday.

The network's next level locally worked out of the so-called Blue House in
Plano, operated by six people on Avenue I, just blocks from Plano police
headquarters. The house was the primary source of heroin and of much of the
cocaine in Plano, the indictment states. Dealers at the Blue House also
supplied heroin and cocaine to an "open-air market" near 18th Street in
Plano, according to the indictments.

"People just stood there and sold drugs," Mercado said. "You would drive up
and pick up the drug. It was so sophisticated that you could page them and
they would get the drug to you, wherever you wanted it."

At the bottom of the pyramid were the dealers who sold the heroin on the street.

"We got 'em from top to bottom, sideways and in between," said one
undercover agent who said he twice bought heroin from Contreras.

Pineda and Garcia were construction workers. Contreras worked for a McKinney
ice cream company, records show. But their business was heroin distribution,
prosecutors say. The men were planning to expand the operation to
Minneapolis when the operation was busted, records state.

"You can consider them significant traffickers," said Paul Villaescusa, a
spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration.

When a heroin shipment got to McKinney, the three men would dilute it or
break it into chunks and sell it to others who would cut the opiate,
officials said.

One neighbor said she had not known what was going on at the house but was
struck by one thing during the months that Contreras and others lived there.

"The longer they stayed, the better cars they got," said the woman, who
requested anonymity.

The operation was broken up in November by a multijurisdictional task force
after undercover agents bought heroin from Contreras in Allen and McKinney,
records show.

Authorities said they found chunks of heroin and cocaine on the floor of a
shed behind the house and in a sink. Three weapons, including an AR-15
assault rifle, were found in the house, as were money, jewelry and more
heroin, officials said.

Contreras was sentenced in June to 125 months in prison and a $15,000 fine
after pleading guilty to possession of black tar heroin with the intent to
deliver and distribution of black tar heroin, according a court records.
Pineda received a 63- month sentence and no fine. Garcia was sentenced to
121 months and a $17,500 fine, according to records.

Yesterday's indictments could lead to sentences of up to life in prison for
each, authorities said.

Susan Gill Vardon contributed to this report.

Checked-by: Melodi Cornett