30 ARRESTED IN MAJOR DRUG SWEEP

Alleged Global Ringleader Nabbed In Singapore

SAN DIEGO - An elusive international drug dealer and 30 other people
in California and Hawaii were arrested after a two-year federal
investigation dubbed ``Operation Doctor Wu,'' officials announced Friday.

The ring leader, ``Doctor Wu,'' was named in an indictment unsealed
Friday as Baron Michael Angelo Suarez-Rothschild. He was being held in
Singapore, and authorities were seeking to extradite him to the United
States, said Misha Piastro, a special agent with the Drug Enforcement
Administration.

``He's a fairly elusive international drug trafficker that we've
suspected of drug trafficking since the early 1980s,'' Piastro said.

Investigators say Suarez-Rothschild also goes by Michael Grabarak. He
carried a U.S. passport, but his true nationality and identity were
unclear. Prosecutors said the name ``Doctor Wu'' comes from a song by
the band Steely Dan.

Suarez-Rothschild was being held for allegedly trying to send more
than two pounds of cocaine through the mail from San Diego to
Singapore, Piastro said.

His pending extradition to the United States ``is probably a relief to
him,'' Piastro said, since Singapore imposes the death penalty for
anyone caught with as little as two ounces of drugs.

For two years, investigators tracked a ring that distributed cocaine,
methamphetamine and marijuana in Southern California and shipped drugs
to Hawaii and Singapore. The methamphetamine was made in Mexico, the
cocaine came from South America and the marijuana came from British
Columbia, Canada, Piastro said.

``This organization was moving millions of dollars' worth of drugs on
a yearly basis,'' he said. ``In one day alone, on April 1, we seized
approximately half a million dollars. That's in one day.''

In searches carried out Thursday, federal and local law enforcement
agencies arrested 22 people in San Diego County, U.S. Attorney Carol
Lam said. Raids in Oahu, Hawaii, led to eight arrests.