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Pot ring indictment

Multistate case focuses spotlight on Amendment 44

Charlie Brennan, Rocky Mountain News

Published October 20, 2006 at midnight

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Nineteen days before Colorado voters decide whether to legalize possession of 1 ounce or less of marijuana, state and federal drug enforcers waded into the debate Thursday with the announcement of a high-profile drug-ring indictment.

Federal Drug Enforcement Administration personnel were joined by officials of several state jurisdictions to tout the results of Operation Berthoud, a 152-count indictment by a Denver grand jury of 38 individuals in an alleged multistate network trafficking in "BC Bud," a highly potent strain of marijuana.

The network, charged with moving 50- to 100-pound monthly shipments from Northern California and the Seattle area to Denver, is also alleged to have trafficked in ecstasy, developed sophisticated local growing operations, and armed itself with high-powered weaponry and bulletproof vests.

The indictment charges those named with operating in violation of the Colorado Organized Crime Control Act. Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey said it is the largest indictment, in terms of the number of individuals named, ever to originate in the Denver prosecutor's office.

Thirty-three of the ring's alleged members live in the Denver area or northeastern Colorado, while five are from Washington state. Its members were characterized as being mostly young adults of multiple ethnicities.

Officials said the probe leading to the indictment started more than a year ago in Weld County as an ecstasy investigation, and that the targeted ring was directed by a third-generation Vietnamese-American, Thanh Thea Hau, 22, who lived in Denver.

Hau, and 26 other people named in the indictment, had been arrested by late Thursday. It is alleged that Hau made about $150,000 a month in the enterprise.

The DEA identified him as part owner of the DC 10 nightclub in Denver.

In a news conference announcing the indictment, DEA Special Agent in Charge Jeffrey D. Sweetin brought up Colorado's proposed Amendment 44, before any reporter had done so.

"In the event that Colorado decides very soon that marijuana is OK in Colorado, there will be many more of these" organizations, Sweetin said.

"So I think this is something we need to consider. Anytime you have bulletproof vests, guns and counterfeiting, I think we have to look at that with our eyes wide open."

He conceded that no acts of violence are included in the indictment.

Sweetin, who has spoken out against Amendment 44 on several other occasions in recent weeks, was asked if there was any political significance to the timing of Thursday's news conference, given that 13 people named in the indictment were still at large when the news conference began.

"Most of the cases that we've put out in front of you don't have 100 percent arrests by the time" they are announced, said Sweetin, who cited a public duty to disclose why more than two-dozen people were suddenly behind bars.

"As far as it being a political announcement, I don't consider it a political announcement," he said.

"I consider it a real eye-opener for people that believe marijuana operates different than organized crime. So, to that extent, is it a message? It wasn't timed to be a message, but, yeah, I think it's a message."

Messages weren't hard to come by Thursday, as outside the DEA offices, Mason Tvert, campaign director of SAFER, which is backing the Amendment 44 initiative, held a counter news conference of his own.

Tvert saw a direct connection between the announcement of the indictment - which had been returned Sept. 27 - and the vote that looms Nov. 7.

"They're doing everything they can to scare people off, voting against an initiative that otherwise they would possibly be voting for," Tvert said.

Tvert argued that alcohol has been tied to many more acts of violence than marijuana.

He claimed that the timing of Thursday's news conference at the DEA, so close to Amendment 44 going to the voters, was a sign that the amendment's opponents smell defeat.

Operation Berthoud

• Indictment returned: Sept. 27 in Denver County

• Individuals named: 38, including 33 from Colorado and five from Washington state

• Alleged ringleader: Thanh Thea Hau, 22, Denver, facing 59 drug trafficking counts. He could serve more than 100 years in prison if convicted on all counts.

• Method of alleged distribution: 50-to-100-pound shipments by car from northern California and the Seattle area to Denver, where it would be sold by multipound or half-pound quantities, sometimes in public settings such as the Tamarac Square area. The pot was valued at $3,000-to-$4,000 per pound, because of its high potency.

• Number arrested: By late Thursday, 27 of the 38 had been placed in custody.

• Seized in the one-year investigation: 95 pounds of high-grade marijuana, three indoor growing operations including 414 plants valued at $3.3 million, more than 1,500 tablets of MDMA (ecstasy), about $704,000 in cash and assets including more than a dozen vehicles.

• Agencies involved: The Federal Drug Enforcement Administration, the Denver District Attorney's Office, the Front Range Task Force and the Weld County Task Force.Source: Drug Enforcement Administration

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Comments

  • May 5, 2008

    5:15 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    Bob_says_F_DEA writes:

    Murderers, rapists, arsonists, muggers, white collar thieves like the Enron boys, negligent homiciders, get less time in prison than 100 years. If this ring did any of that stuff, charge them on that, not BS drug laws.

    My body, my property, my choice.

    Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association, freedom of the press; the right to bear arms, the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures; the right to not incriminate oneself, to not be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; the right to an abortion; the right to sell one's body; the right to use drugs; these all originate from 'my body, my property, my choice'.

    We citizens of America have lost sight of what it means to be free, to have liberty. We have allowed the Federal and State Governments, the DEA and local law enforcement to convince us that these drugs are such a scourge and menace to the public that they must be banned and that those who violate the ban must be imprisoned.

    I dare say a government that takes away a man's freedom, for buying or selling substances with other consenting adults, is a far greater menace to our way of life, to our liberty, to our freedom, than any drug has ever or could ever be.

    My body, my property, my choice.