Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, October 4, 1995 TAG: 9510040069
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JAN VERTEFEUILLE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Louisa, Va., population 1,088, seems an unlikely point of entry for Malaysian heroin smugglers.
But the Louisa Post Office was one of the spots in the United States used by a Far East heroin trafficking ring, according to a federal indictment unsealed last week.
The ring was alleged to have "unlimited supplies of heroin" that was available for import to the United States. One planned shipment alone would have been worth close to $1 billion on the street, according to the government's calculations of the drug's street value.
A Louisa restaurant owner, who pleaded guilty in 1992 to accepting packages of heroin from Malaysia and delivering them to a distributor in New York, appears to have cooperated with law enforcement and provided details of the ring.
For nearly 21/2 years, federal authorities have sought seven men they believe operated the smuggling ring, which may have shipped the highly addictive powder into the United States through New York, Boston and Louisa. The seven were indicted by a federal grand jury in Roanoke in May 1993. The federal court district based in Roanoke includes Louisa County.
Most of the suspects are citizens of Malaysia and Thailand. The U.S. attorney's office in Roanoke has asked officials in those countries to help extradite them to stand trial in Virginia.
On Sept. 2, authorities arrested the first of those seven, when Chin Vee "Eric" Choong stepped off a plane at JFK International Airport in New York. He was taken into custody after a routine check by U.S. Customs in the airport. He is being held in the Charlottesville jail, awaiting an Oct. 18 hearing.
After Choong's arrest, the sealed indictment was opened so he could see a copy of the charges against him. It reveals the scope of the alleged heroin ring that, before members went into hiding, reportedly was planning to bring in a shipment of 140 kilograms - 308 pounds - and had another 100 kilograms waiting to be smuggled in from Canada.
It is unclear why Choong, 28, returned to the United States last month. He is charged with importing heroin, conspiracy to import heroin and conspiracy to distribute heroin. His attorney in Charlottesville, Ted Hogshire, would not say anything about his client.
According to the indictment, the DEA began monitoring the group in 1991, when one of its informants agreed to distribute heroin imported through a man in Malaysia, Jimmy Chong.
Chong said he "had access to unlimited supplies of heroin," according to the indictment. Later, at a meeting in Thailand, he introduced the informant to Kim Huan Ee, who was secretly recorded saying that he represents a "large organization that ships large amounts of heroin into the United States." Agents from the DEA and the Thai Office of Narcotics Control Board staked out the meeting.
Kim, the alleged ringleader, was an escapee from a Malaysian jail living in Thailand and traveling with a Philippine passport, according to the indictment. Kim relocated to Boston, where he obtained a false driver's license and kept $40,000 in cash as an "escape fund," the indictment says.
The informant introduced Kim to an undercover DEA agent, who told Kim he had a way to smuggle heroin into the country undetected. Kim wanted to ship at least 140 kilograms to start, according to the indictment. By the government's estimates of the Louisa heroin shipment, that would be worth $933 million on the street.
Up to that point, the ring was shipping the drug, 4 to 5 kilograms at a time, to post office boxes like the one in Louisa and having it delivered to New York for street sale, according to the indictment.
But before the DEA could arrange to have the shipment brought over, and presumably make arrests, the Louisa restaurant owner was caught.
U.S. Customs, working on its own, seized the fourth shipment of heroin headed to Louisa, inserted a transmitter in the package and sent it on to Virginia. The alleged recipient, Chong Yeek Y, owner of the China Wok restaurant, was arrested.
But Customs agents' efforts appear to have inadvertantly compromised the DEA's investigation, and the rest of the group disappeared after Chong's arrest. Assistant U.S. Attorney Joe Mott said most of the six still at large are believed to be hiding in Thailand and Malaysia. One man, who worked at the China Wok restaurant and reportedly helped Chong deliver the shipments to New York, is a native of Ecuador, which does not have an extradition treaty with the United States.
U.S. District Judge James Turk in August wrote to the Singapore government, asking for help in getting an affidavit from a witness that could be used to extradite the suspects from Thailand and Malaysia.
The only heroin seized by law enforcement in the case was the 3.6 kilograms intercepted by Customs on its way to Louisa in February 1992. At that time it was the largest seizure of the drug in Virginia, worth an estimated $24 million, according to the U.S. Attorney's office.
by CNB