TWENTY PEOPLE INDICTED IN CONNECTION WITH INTERNATIONAL DRUG RING FRIDAY,

SAN DIEGO (AP) -- A two-year probe by U.S. officials has led to the
indictments of 20 people in connection with a Thai marijuana smuggling ring
that operated in at least six countries, authorities say.

Phillip Edward Hastings and Bruce Craig Fitzgerald have been accused of
leading the operation that brought 18,000 pounds of the potent and
high-priced marijuana into the United States starting in 1995.

Hastings, who had used the aliases Henry David Addison and Henry Davidson
when living in Solana Beach, Calif., and Maui, Hawaii, is a 46-year-old
Australian citizen with resident alien status in the United States,
authorities said.

Fitzgerald, also known as Stephen Hutchinson and Cowboy, is a 48-year-old
U.S. citizen who last lived in Reno and Lake Tahoe, Nevada.

Both are currently fugitives, federal prosecutor Shane Harrigan said
Thursday. The two were among the 20 people named in a sealed indictment
returned last month by a San Diego federal grand jury.

Ronald Franklin Newman, Hastings' alleged assistant, and Victor Allyn
Smith, supposedly captain of one of the boats used to transport the drugs,
were among eight people arraigned Thursday in San Diego on a variety of
drug charges. Authorities were still searching for the 12 others.

The complicated scheme used six different boats to bring the drugs from
Southeast Asia to the United States.

Authorities said the drugs were first loaded on a 65-foot sail boat called
just off the coast of Cambodia. They were then transferred to a 60-foot
sailboat near Majuro of the Marshall Islands, about 1,500 miles off the
coast of Washington.

``Often, more than one boat is used so as not to arouse suspicion,''
Harrigan said.

The boat then sailed to Anacortes, Wash., and the drugs were ferried to
other ports on power boats.

Once the marijuana was smuggled into the United States, it was temporarily
stored at three different houses in the Seattle area. Most of the drugs
were later moved on rental trucks to the Northern California towns of Grass
Valley and Truckee, authorities said.

From late September 1995 to April 1996, the marijuana was distributed
throughout the United States from a home in Yucca Valley, Calif.,
authorities said.

The price of Thai marijuana ranges from about $1,000 a pound to $3,000 a
pound, Harrigan said, compared to Mexican marijuana, typically valued
between $350 to $600 a pound.

An investigation by the U.S. Customs Service and the Drug Enforcement
Agency led to the indictments.

If convicted, the men face maximum sentences of life in prison.