8 ACCUSED OF HELPING MOVE POT WORTH $27M

MALONE - Authorities charged eight people, including four from
Franklin and St. Lawrence counties, over their alleged roles in an
international drug smuggling operation linked to the Russian Mafia
that moved about $27 million worth of marijuana.

The two-year investigation exposed a pipeline moving thousands of
pounds of marijuana from the north country to Cleveland, prosecutors
said. The crime syndicate is alleged to have moved the marijuana,
which came from Canada through the St. Regis Mohawk Reservation, over
the last three years.

Reminderville, Ohio, Police Chief Jeffrey Buck told the Cleveland
Plain Dealer that Beachwood Police began the initial investigation in
2007. He said the two departments started a collaborative
investigation in December.

Mr. Buck said the police agencies worked together after it was
discovered they were looking at common suspects. The departments then
turned their evidence over to officials in New York.

"They were moving the marijuana biweekly," Franklin County District
Attorney Derek P. Champagne said. "The syndicate was very well
organized and systematic in moving the marijuana."

Mr. Buck said he expects more than a dozen people in Ohio to be
indicted by the end of next week. He told the Plain Dealer the drugs
were brought into the states through Quebec.

The investigation found that Daniel P. Simonds, who was murdered last
May at his town of Stockholm home, was moving marijuana for the
Russians to the Cleveland area every other week.

A federal indictment handed up in November accuses seven people of
robbing Mr. Simonds of the marijuana and money at his home on May 12,
2008, and of beating and shooting him before fleeing. Six people are
in custody.

Several area law enforcement agencies, including the Franklin County
and St. Lawrence County Drug Task Forces and state police, then joined
the investigation.

Search warrants recently executed at homes in the towns of Dickinson,
Waverly and Hopkinton and the Hill Top Shop in St. Regis Falls, along
with 10 locations in Ohio, uncovered more than $1.3 million in cash.
Authorities also seized 14 vehicles, 2 utility trailers, three
all-terrain vehicles, a snowmobile, a boat and about a pound of cocaine.

The investigation is continuing and more arrests are
expected.

A recent federal designation will help four northern New York counties
which border Canada to continue disrupting the drug trafficking trade,
prosecutors said. The High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program
offers federal drug law enforcement money and law enforcement resources.

"It underscores and is another example of the HIDTA designation," St.
Lawrence County District Attorney Nicole M. Duve said. "It allows us
to coordinate resources and share intelligence."