LAWRENCE WOMAN, SONS FACING HEROIN CHARGES

By Associated Press

CONCORD, N.H. Authorities say they have broken up a cocaine and heroin
ring in western New Hampshire by arresting a Lawrence, Mass., woman and her
three sons.

Lidia Nunez, 46, and one son, Jose Traveras, were ordered held without bail
Monday in US District Court. Two other sons, Jimmy and Dominico Traveras,
were detained after hearings last week. The sons' ages were not available.

All four are charged with conspiracy to sell heroin and cocaine. Police say
the family is responsible for the rapid growth of heroin use in the
Claremont, Newport, and Croydon area.

Federal agents and police are seeking a fifth man indicted by a federal
grand jury as a coconspirator, said Assistant US Attorney Terry Ollila.
Authorities don't know his name.

Ollila called Nunez the ringleader of the operation and said an undercover
officer bought heroin and cocaine from the family several times during an
11month investigation that began last year. Police also secretly taped
conversations with the suspects about buying drugs.

Ollila said it was the biggest bust of a heroin operation in New Hampshire
in years. And Sullivan County authorities said it was the biggest drug
operation they had seen.

Sullivan County Attorney Marc Hathaway called the spread of heroin the
area's ''No. 1 problem.'' He said 19 people have been arrested on heroin
charges since January, and 12 of them were linked to Nunez and her sons.

''They created the market,'' he said. ''They have gotten so many people
hooked on it that we have people regularly running to Lawrence and Lowell
[Mass.] to get it.''

He said he hoped the arrests would cut the flow of heroin into Sullivan
County and make other dealers think twice before moving in.

Newport police Detective Lt. James Brown said that during the
investigation, his department learned that one Newport resident had removed
all four tires from his car and sold them to buy heroin.

Copyright 1997 Globe Newspaper Company.