THE NATION: US probe leads to arres

[suriya@xxxxxxxxxxxx]

April 12, 1998


                                      



                                NARCOTICS

              US probe leads to
              arrest of 20 in link
              to drug smugglers

              Two-year inquiry nets trafficking ring

              Atwo-year probe by US officials has led to the indictments of
              20 people in connection with a Thai marijuana smuggling ring that
              operated in at least six countries, San Diego authorities say.

              Phillip Edward Hastings and Bruce Craig Fitzgerald have been
              accused of leading the operation that brought 8,000 kilos of the
              potent and high-priced marijuana into the United States starting
              in 1995.

              Hastings, who had used the aliases Henry David Addison and
              Henry Davidson when living in Solana Beach, California, and
              Maui, Hawaii, is a 46-year-old Australian citizen with resident
              alien status in the US, authorities said.

              Fitzgerald, also known as Stephen Hutchinson and Cowboy, is a
              48-year-old US citizen who last lived in Reno and Lake Tahoe,
              Nevada.

              Both are fugitives, federal prosecutor Shane Harrigan said on
              Thursday. The two were among the 20 people named in a sealed
              indictment returned last month by a San Diego federal grand
              jury.

              Eight defendants were arraigned on Thursday in San Diego on a
              variety of drug charges. Authorities were still searching for the 12
              others.

              The complicated scheme used six different boats to bring the
              drugs from Southeast Asia to the US.

              From late September 1995 to April 1996, the marijuana was
              distributed throughout the US from a home in Yucca Valley,
              California, authorities said.

              The price of Thai marijuana ranges from about $1,000-$3,000 a
              pound, Mr Harrigan said, compared to Mexican marijuana,
              typically valued between $350 to $600 a pound.

              Meanwhile, Burma's narcotics problem could be solved within
              seven years with cooperation from Thailand and the United
              Nations, a Burmese representative said at a Thai-Burmese
              narcotics suppression meeting in Chiang Mai on Friday.

              Deputy Burmese police chief Pol Brig-Gen Hla Tun who headed
              Burma's Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC)
              at the two-day meeting said he believes narcotics could be
              eliminated altogether from Burma within seven years with the
              continued help of Thailand and the United Nations Drugs
              Control Programme (UNDCP).

              According to him, the Burmese government is now conducting a
              survey to get a precise figure of drug addicts in the country in
              order to facilitate narcotics suppression operations.

              Without foreign help it would take Burma 15 years or more to
              overcome the problem, he said.

              He also urged Thailand and Burma, which had agreed to take
              turns in hosting a meeting on narcotics suppression every six
              months, to invite Laos to observe the next meeting.

              Chief of the CCDAC's foreign affairs division Pol Col Hkam
              Aung said Rangoon was determined to suppress the production
              of narcotic drugs, especially amphetamines, in Burma.

              According to Burmese representatives, 7,883 kilogrammes of
              opium, 1,400 kilogrammes of heroin, 24,224 gallons of drug
              precursors and more than five million tablets of amphetamines
              were seized in Burma last year.

              Meanwhile, two men were arrested on Friday after police found
              300,000 amphetamine tablets hidden in their pick-up truck in
              Sop Prap district of Lampang province.

              The seized tablets' street value is estimated at 15 million baht.

              Acting on a tip-off, Sop Prab police stopped the pick-up truck
              for a search and discovered the tablets in 142 parcels concealed
              in a specially-designed compartment of the pick-up truck.

              Narin Apai, 34, and Noppadol Kaewmon, 27, both natives of
              Chiang Mai's Mae Ai district allegedly confessed that they had
              been hired for 30,000 baht by a tribesman in Mae Ai to deliver
              the drugs to an agent in Bangkok.

              Sources said Sop Prab police have arrested 38 drug suspects
              and seized some 1.5 million amphetamine tablets from 20
              vehicles since the beginning of this year. - AP/Bangkok Post




                                      




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