POLICE TAKE OVER WEB SITE TO CATCH ONLINE DRUG BUYERS

When Rhinelander police busted a man on suspicion of possessing cocaine he
bought over the Internet, the usual course of action would have been to end
the investigation after finding the source of the drugs.

But in a tactic authorities called one of the first of its kind in
Wisconsin, federal investigators joined the case. They not only found what
they believe was the drug source, but they adopted the accused online drug
dealer's persona in order to catch his customers.

The new strategy, called sanctions-based demand reduction, was spearheaded
by former Deputy Attorney General Larry D. Thompson, and it has gone into
use here in the last six months, said J.B. Van Hollen, the U.S. attorney
for the Western District of Wisconsin.

According to the charges against the man authorities identified as the
online dealer, Thomaz W. Franzl, 27, of Chicago had a menu of 13 different
substances that ranged from common prescription drugs, such as Ritalin and
Percocet, to cocaine and methamphetamine.

The Rhinelander man who became an informant after he was arrested used his
credit cards to purchase more than $6,000 in cocaine, OxyContin and
Ketamine from Franzl between October 2003 and June 2004, according to an
affidavit filed in federal court in Madison last month.

"Before, we probably would have just taken Mr. Franzl and closed down the
site and not done anything further," Van Hollen said. "We wouldn't have
gone down the ladder to figure out who some of his buyers are."

But in this case, the first involving Internet drug sales in the federal
court's Western District - roughly the western two-thirds of the state -
authorities from the federal Drug Enforcement Administration and the North
Central Drug Enforcement Group, a conglomerate of several northern
Wisconsin law enforcement agencies, pretended to fill Internet orders.

Prosecuting drug users has been primarily the responsibility of local and
state law enforcement agencies, while federal authorities concentrated on
kingpins and big-time dealers. But foreign countries that the government
has been pressuring to curb their drug exports have responded that the
United States is not limiting drug demand, Van Hollen said.

Because Franzl's alleged illegal operation used the Internet, federal
prosecutors were able to increase the charges against his suspected
customers. On Oct. 6 a federal grand jury in Madison indicted nine of
Franzl's would-be customers not only on an attempted drug possession
charge, which carries a sentence of up to one year, but also with one count
of using the Internet to facilitate the unlawful distribution of a
controlled substances. That charge has a maximum four-year sentence.

Mostly Professionals

The accused customers were mostly white-collar professionals, according to
Tim O'Shea, the federal prosecutor assigned to the case. Authorities said
the seven men and two women included a 20-year-old female college student
at Ursinus College in Pennsylvania who ordered Ritalin and Adderall; a
26-year-old public relations man in Chicago who ordered Ketamine; and a
Glendale man who tried to have cocaine delivered to the house he shares
with his parents.

The nine people charged have been ordered to appear in court in Madison but
have not been arrested because they are not considered flight risks, O'Shea
said.

[Names and locations deleted]

Prosecuting Internet drug dealers' customers, Van Hollen said, sends a
signal to others who order drugs on the Web or through the mail thinking it
is safer than going into rough neighborhoods to purchase drugs.

No More Hiding in Offices

"We want to make sure that people out there know that even though they're
sitting in their offices, there is a great risk of being found out," Van
Hollen said. "We're trying to make sure that the Internet doesn't get used
for inappropriate purposes."

But some experts on the drug war say prosecuting small-time drug users such
as those ordering from Franzl won't help in the government's effort to wipe
out drug sales.

"There's just no evidence at all that the government is having any
significant impact on the drug market," said Tim Lynch, the director of the
Cato Institute's Project on Criminal Justice. ". . . For this particular
operation, it's not going to have much impact beyond those handful of
customers. There's plenty more where they came from."

Lynch said that publicizing drug busts such as those of Franzl and the
Internet customers might deter others from making similar purchases now,
but it won't make a difference in the long run.

"If they can generate some media coverage of this operation, the idea
behind it is they'll get people to think twice before purchasing things
online," he said. "It might have some very short-term impact, but overall,
I don't see it having any sort of an impact in the black market in narcotics."