BABIES USED IN DRUG RING, OFFICIALS SAY

CHICAGO, Dec. 14 -- Federal officials today charged 35 people with running
an international cocaine and heroin smuggling ring that used women
traveling with infants -- some of them "rented" from poor families -- to
transport drugs in cans of baby formula.

"This operation preyed on the great respect that we as human beings all
afford mothers and babies -- and betrayed that respect brazenly," Patrick
J. Fitzgerald, the United States attorney for the Northern District of
Illinois, said in announcing the indictments here this morning. "Renting
babies for the purpose of allowing drug dealers to smuggle cocaine is truly
a new low."

According to indictments unsealed today, over the last two years female
couriers flew on 34 occasions with 20 different infants from Chicago to
Panama, where they picked up formula cans injected with liquefied cocaine,
and then returned. Others smuggled cocaine into the United States from
Jamaica inside rum bottles, the handles of their suitcases or injected into
their body cavities.

Most of the drugs were distributed in Chicago and New York, but some were
sold in London and Birmingham, England, officials said.

Scott Levine, an assistant United States attorney, said parents in the
Englewood neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago were paid $200 to
$2,000, plus marijuana in some cases, to send their babies on the trips,
which lasted from two days to two weeks. One child, the daughter of Keith
Moore, 35, and Marisa Hardy, 22, made six trips, the first when she was 3
weeks old, the indictment says.

"On that trip the baby was crying and looked sickly," Mr. Levine said in an
interview. "The baby was crying a lot, so Catrina Martin left her in an
empty bathtub and closed the door." On a separate trip, he said, "That same
baby was crying so much that the courier, Shanae Reed, left her alone in
the hotel room and went out for a beer."

Ms. Martin was arrested in London with the baby and about 18 baby- formula
cans containing six kilos of cocaine, Mr. Levine said. Mr. Moore and Ms.
Hardy, who are among four Chicago parents charged with loaning or renting
their children to the operation, have had their parental rights terminated
and the baby, now more than 2 years old, has been adopted.

"These drug dealers used the most depraved way possible in which to import
and export their commodity," Mr. Levine said. "There are people who are
willing to do anything and come up with any imaginable way of smuggling
cocaine and heroin into the United States and out of the United States."

Of the 35 people indicted, three were arraigned today, and four others are
in custody on previous charges. Nineteen other people the authorities say
were connected to the ring have previously been charged, and all but one of
them convicted, over the past two years.

The operation was exposed when a customs inspector in Newark stopped a
woman traveling to London in January 1999 and discovered six formula cans
filled with liquid cocaine, officials said. Separately, Chicago police also
received a call from a frantic mother when her baby failed to return from a
smuggling trip after a week.

According to the indictment, Clacy Watson Herrera, who is in custody in
Panama, and Byron Watson of Montego Bay, Jamaica, supplied the drugs. They
liquefied the cocaine in a blender with hot water, officials said, squirted
it with a syringe through holes in the cans made with a hammer and nail,
soldered the holes and reattached the baby formula labels.

Each 16-ounce can held up to $700,000 worth of cocaine, which was later
turned into crack for sale, the authorities said.

The suspects include parents of the "rented" babies, women who acted as
couriers, people who fraudulently obtained free airline tickets and false
passports, and those who orchestrated the scheme. One of the ringleaders,
officials say, is Selena Johnson, 29, who recruited Mr. Moore and Ms.
Hardy's baby. The indictment says that Orville Wilson, 38, a New Yorker,
came up with the scheme of having female couriers travel with babies and
cans of formula.

A total of 20 kilos of cocaine was seized on four trips. The authorities
believe the ring may have made as many as 45 such trips. The suspects face
penalties ranging from five years to life in prison, with fines up to $4
million. The charges are all drug-related.