-from thetimesonline.com-

By Joe Carlson

Although the news is sometimes lost in the fast clip of region drug busts, federal drug-enforcement officials say they’ve broken up six major distribution operations in a little more than three years, preventing millions of doses of narcotics from hitting the streets.

Rough calculations show that the busts netted at least 1.79 million individual doses of cocaine and 228,000 doses of heroin in that time period, but experts say the actual number of doses probably is much higher because of a differential in drug purity.

In addition to the drugs, local U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration offices report that the six major drug distribution organizations brought down between 2005 and early 2008 by federal, state and local law enforcement translated into 46 arrests and $1.75 million in seized assets. Those assets include cars, cash and real estate

“It’s just guys out there, doing their jobs, taking the risks and going after the top drug dealers in the area,” said Dennis Wichern, assistant special agent in charge of Indiana for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

From violent street gangs to a mail-order scheme run out of a prison in Thailand, the organizations varied widely in their modes of getting drugs onto the streets of Lake and Porter counties.

What the cases had in common, Wichern said, was resistance from the region’s tightly interwoven network of drug-fighting officials that includes task forces of local, county and state police and agents from the FBI, DEA, and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Indiana remains “an active drug transportation and distribution area,” according to the DEA’s 2008 fact sheet on the state, with the primary supplies of cocaine, marijuana and heroin coming from Mexican drug cartels, primarily by interstate highways.

Peter Venturelli, chair of the department of sociology and criminology at Valparaiso University, was skeptical of the true impact of the anti-drug task forces.

He said the statistics on large drug hauls like the ones Wichern cited were designed to impress people who were not well-versed in illegal drug use “and that’s the bulk of the voters,” he said.

“I think there’s so much out there that these busts don’t do much to the actual supply,” said Venturelli, a co-author of the textbook “Drugs and Society.”

“If they didn’t do any drug busts at all, would anything really change?”

Wichern admitted that the void left by the bust from one dealer is often quickly filled again, and that the overall problem is created by the demand for illegal drugs.

But he compared the situation to bank robberies. Just because authorities have never stopped people from robbing banks does not mean authorities should stop going after the robbers, he said.

“Our fight against drug abuse and addiction is an ongoing struggle that should be treated like any other social problem,” Wichern said. “Would we give up on education and poverty simply because we haven’t eliminated all problems?”

SIX BUSTS, THREE YEARS
– In April 2006, authorities charged Santiago Castenada and three alleged partners with distribution and conspiracy to distribute heroin after an intensive investigation led to the seizure of 138 kilograms of cocaine and 8 kilograms of heroin at two locations in Northwest Indiana and Illinois. A kilogram is 2.2 pounds. Officials with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration called it one of the largest drug busts in Lake County history.
– The 2002 bust of a street-level heroin dealer in East Chicago led to the 2007 extradition of two Thai citizens who were allegedly running a large, international drug-distribution ring out of a maximum security prison in Bangkok using cell phones. Pasit Bencharit and Suwanee Spriprasarn are in U.S. custody, while a third alleged conspirator, Australian Mitchell Blake, remains in Thai custody.
– In 2005, Vice Lord gang member Lee Dickens was charged along with three co-defendants with distributing marijuana and kilogram-quantities of cocaine. Court records said Dickens bought the drugs from a distributor and sold them to street dealers in the Calumet section of East Chicago, where the powder cocaine was often cooked into crack.
– In early 2007, federal authorities brought charges against 17 people accused of operating a widespread heroin-distribution ring in Porter County. Everyone in the case was charged with conspiring to possess heroin, with the exception of Matthew Bishop, of Crown Point, who faced charges of distributing heroin. Bishop and three others have pleaded guilty to conspiring to distribute the drug.
– In October 2007, six people were charged with taking part in a large-scale cocaine distribution ring involving members of the Northwest Indiana branch of the Latin Dragons street gang. The gang’s purported leader, Rosalio Rincon of Merrillville, was fatally shot in by a DEA agent who was attempting to arrest Rincon on drug distribution charges. Police said Rincon tried to run down the agent with a car.
– After four years in investigations, authorities brought charges against seven people in January 2008 in an alleged distribution ring centered on the Schererville home of Kevin “Chocolate” Carter, who has pleaded not guilty. Authorities said they seized from the home more than 100 pounds of marijuana and several luxury vehicles, including a 2005 Bentley.