Dozens Arrested in Heroin Smuggling Ring
By ALLISON HOFFMAN
Associated Press Writer
The Associated Press
Updated: 6:05 p.m. MT May 23, 2007
SAN DIEGO - More than three dozen people have been arrested in connection with a ring suspected of smuggling $35 million in Colombian heroin to New York and New Jersey through Mexico.

Federal prosecutors in San Diego unsealed 10 indictments Wednesday, charging 44 people with a variety of drug trafficking, money laundering and counterfeiting charges.

Couriers ferried heroin through the California border crossing at Calexico and then took it to San Diego, Phoenix, Las Vegas and Palm Springs for shipment to the East Coast, according to federal law enforcement officials. The contraband was sewn into jacket linings, rolled into jeans and concealed in baby blankets and table linens.

Authorities seized about 350 kilograms of heroin valued at $35 million, along with 220 kilograms of cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana. About $1 million in high-quality counterfeit U.S. currency was also seized, officials said.

"This isn't tar heroin," said Alan Polesak, the acting head of the Drug Enforcement Administration field office in San Diego. "This is high-end powder, and it takes a major smuggling operation to move 350 kilos of it."

Sweeps conducted over the past week netted 18 people in California, nine in Colombia, seven in Mexico, one in the Dominican Republic and one in Costa Rica, federal prosecutors said. All of those in custody will be transported or extradited to San Diego to face trial, federal prosecutors said.

Seven of the suspected smugglers _ six Mexicans and one Colombian _ are still fugitives. An eighth man died in Colombia in March. Authorities there are investigating the circumstances of his death, interim San Diego U.S. Attorney Karen Hewitt said.

Four people were arrested and charged in a separate federal court indictment in New York with conspiring to distribute heroin for the ring, Hewitt said.

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