78 ARRESTED IN ALLEGED HEROIN RING

12 From Mass. Are Suspected Of Smuggling

US and Colombian authorities said yesterday that they had crushed a
major international heroin ring, arresting 78 people, including a
dozen Massachusetts residents, who had smuggled hundreds of pounds of
heroin from Colombia and then sold the potent drug for millions of
dollars on the streets of Boston, Chicago, New York, and Orlando, Fla.

The arrests followed a 17-month investigation by the US Drug
Enforcement Administration and Colombian National Police. Authorities
said the arrests, along with the seizure of 20 guns, $1.4 million in
cash, and 78 kilograms of heroin, would effectively stop a major
source of heroin that had been linked to a dozen fatal overdoses in
Massachusetts.

"Today, we stopped an avalanche of heroin and cocaine coming here,
and we removed mountains of the destructive substance," said June W.
Stansbury, special agent in charge of the New England office of the
DEA, speaking at a press conference to announce the arrests at the
Moakley Federal Courthouse in Boston.

Officials described the smugglers as creative. They sewed heroin into
the lining of clothing and the soles of shoes. On Oct. 7, police in
Colombia discovered a shipment of heroin worth about $4 million
hidden inside the frames of paintings of geishas. Authorities believe
that much of the shipment was headed to Boston.

To crack the ring, Colombian and US authorities tapped 100 phone
lines. They said they posted a camera outside an apartment used by
alleged ringleader Julio Cartagena, 47, of Malden, and watched him at
his job, running a cellphone store called Tristeza Communications in
Charlestown. They followed his alleged associates to a supermarket in
Revere and to restaurants in New York. Yesterday, they began the
raids and arrests. Agents handcuffed 12 people from Massachusetts,
including one who was in Florida and one who was in New York, and
four Colombian citizens who are to be extradited to Boston. Antonio
Molina, 45, of Everett, remains at large, officials said.

"We believe that this was a substantial organization, and the
important thing about this is we were able to take them down from top
to bottom," Stansbury said, saying that the arrests include low-level
street dealers, as well as Cartagena and his alleged primary
supplier, Luis A. Lopez, 51, of Medford.

Cartagena, who was said to be in charge of the Massachusetts end of
the operation, allegedly received shipments from Lopez and passed
them to a network of lower-level dealers across the eastern part of
the state. Some of the others charged yesterday were described as
runners who brought the drugs into the state from Colombia, New York,
and Florida.

US Attorney Michael J. Sullivan said the charges against the 13
Massachusetts residents include conspiracy to import more than one
kilogram of heroin from Colombia to the United States, punishable by
life in prison, and conspiracy to distribute heroin, which carries a
maximum penalty of 20 years behind bars.

The investigation, dubbed Operation High Step, opened a window onto a
complex network of drug smuggling that reached from airport bathrooms
in Colombia, where cleaning staff and security guards handed heroin
to US-bound smugglers, to Boston, Lawrence, Lynn, Everett, and
Lawrence, where much of the heroin was later sold in $5 and $10 bags.
Some of the money was then wired to suppliers in Colombia, authorities said.

In a phone conversation recorded by a Revere police officer and
recounted in an affidavit, the alleged dealers speak proudly of
dealing with a Colombian supplier called La Iguana. Lopez and
Cartagena allegedly boast of trying to find "the most beautiful," or
highest-quality heroin, not the "feo" or low-quality drug.

"Wednesday?" Cartagena is said to ask Lopez in one conversation
recorded Sept. 29. "When that comes in, we'll see. This weekend we
will be dancing that dance." Authorities said that was a reference to
reaping large profits from heroin.

Stansbury cautioned that although the arrests will stop a substantial
quantity of heroin from entering Massachusetts, new dealers will be
ready within days to supply tens of thousands of addicts in the
region. Heroin is an increasing problem in New England, she said, as
users who can no longer afford prescription Oxycontin switch to the
less expensive, highly addictive morphine derivative.

"It's a big problem, unfortunately," Stansbury said. "We are seeing
an increase in heroin addicts nationwide."

Colombia's top drug enforcement official, Brigadier General Jorge
Baron Leguizamon, said at the press conference that he wanted to
dedicate yesterday's arrests to the 200 Colombian police officers
killed in drug violence in that nation every year. Through a
translator, he praised the cooperation between his country and the
United States.

"We will continue our fight against drugs," the Colombian general
declared. He added that 41 people in Colombia had been arrested in
connection with the ring, which his force had been investigating for
a year and a half.

Locally, police chiefs who aided in the investigation described
heroin as a scourge in Massachusetts that fuels crime.

"We see victims almost every day in cities like Lynn, people
overdosing, people dying from use of heroin," said Police Chief John
W. Suslak of Lynn.

In their day-to-day lives around Boston, however, the alleged dealers
were inconspicious.

Cartagena's neighbors on Staples Avenue in Everett were shocked to
learn of the arrests yesterday. A resident said one of the men who
used the apartment was friendly.

"Very nice, very polite, very quiet. . . . He looked nice," said the
neighbor, who did not want to give her name.

She said she heard police banging on the apartment door at 7 a.m.
yesterday. "They yelled, 'Merry Christmas!' before they bashed the
door down," said the resident, who did not want to give her name.

At Tristeza Communications on Bunker Hill Street in Charlestown
yesterday, the windows and doors were padlocked and covered with
metal shutters. Juan Rodriguez, owner of Bunker Hill Market, said
yesterday that two friendly employees had helped him send money to
the Dominican Republic.

"It's a business like any other," he said in Spanish. "I just know
them as a cellphone and money-transfer store."

Police Chief Steven S. Mazzie of Everett said he was not surprised
that they managed to melt into their communities. "Cities like ours
are just prime targets for them to set up shop in," Mazzie said. "The
thing about communities like mine is these type of individuals can
blend in very easily. I mean Everett's a blue-collar, working-class
city, very diverse."

Some neighbors had complained that Cartagena's shop seemed to draw
people who did not appear to be residents and would loiter outside.

"I know that police have told us at the public safety meetings that
they've been heavily investigated, they've been watched," said Thomas
Cunha, chairman of the Charlestown Neighborhood Council.

Authorities said Cartagena had used the store to wire drug profits
back to Colombia.

Miren Uriarte, director of the Mauricio Gaston Institute for Latino
Community Development and Public Policy at the University of
Massachusetts at Boston, said she was concerned that the arrests
would cast a negative light on the local Colombian community.

"This is not something that should be seen as characteristic of the
Colombians living in Massachusetts," she said.