MASS RAIDS TAKE AIM AT CHICAGO DRUG RING

CHICAGO -- Hundreds of federal agents and Chicago police officers
carried out mass raids across the city and nearby suburbs before dawn
today, aimed at what they said was one of the deadliest drug rings
seen in years.

Among the dozens of people arrested in the raids was a female Chicago
police officer described as a conspirator, according to the police. A
person said to be a ranking member of the drug ring was arrested in
Ohio late Tuesday night, before the raids began.

The police and federal agents executed a total of 48 warrants in and
around Chicago, most of them at the Dearborn Homes public housing
project, located just a few blocks from police headquarters.

Authorities said the drug ring deals in fentanyl, a painkiller
developed in the 1960's that surfaced as a street drug two decades
ago, often as an additive in heroin. The ring has been blamed for at
least 70 overdose-related deaths in the Chicago area and at least 200
others across the eastern half of the country, from St. Louis to
Camden, N.J. Authorities said the ring was based in Chicago and was
dealing in fentanyl that was most likely manufactured in Mexico.

A news conference is planned later this afternoon at the United
States Attorney's office in Chicago to announce further details of
the raids, which were called the product of a yearlong investigation.

Authorities in Chicago said they first started noticing a pattern of
overdoses associated with fentanyl in April 2005. After a lull, they
said, the activity picked up again early this year, and several dozen
fentanyl-related deaths were reported in Chicago and its suburbs
during March and April.

Authorities said the drug has proven deadly when taken alone, but
more often in a mixture with heroin and sometimes cocaine and alcohol.

The drug ring in Chicago was run, the police said, by several gangs,
but chiefly a gang called the Mickey Cobras, which operates out of
the Dearborn Homes housing project, a mostly mid-rise and low-rise development.

At least four federal agencies -- the Drug Enforcement
Administration, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, United States
Marshalls and the United States Attorney's office -- were involved in
the raids, as were the Chicago police and fire departments.

Officers mustered before 5 a.m. Central time in the parking lot of
U.S. Cellular Field, the home stadium for the Chicago White Sox on
the near South Side of the city. After roll call, Timothy Ogden, the
associate special agent in charge of the D.E.A.'s Chicago office,
warned the gathered officers about the dangers of the drug.

"It is dangerous to the touch," he said. "You can overdose by simply
touching the stuff and touching it to your eyes, your nose or other
areas of your body."

Members of a S.W.A.T. team and special operations officers loaded up
high-powered rifles and took up positions around the Dearborn Homes
as the operation began, but the raids proceeded over the next several
hours apparently without violent incident. Successive teams of
officers and agents secured buildings, then entered apartments, and
finally arrested and removed suspects.

Because of widespread use of surveillance cameras to deter street
crime, the fentanyl drug activity had largely moved indoors, the
police said, with users sometimes forced to take the drug in the
apartment where it was sold to them.

Authorities said that the rash of overdose deaths from the fentanyl
ring's activities is the worst they have seen since the peak of crack
cocaine abuse or the resurgence of heroin as a street drug in the 1980's.

Officials in Chicago said that while the operation here was the
largest, other raids aimed at the same drug ring were also being
conducted in other cities.