Police Squeeze Big Tacoma Drug Ring

TACOMA - The tall suspect had just left the tiny grocery store at 23rd and M Street, in the heart of the Hilltop area.

An unmarked Tacoma police van sped off in pursuit, careening down an alley lined with vacant homes and tearing down 25th Street, past a cluster of gang members being patted down by undercover officers.

``He's around here somewhere,'' said undercover Officer Mike Beakley, as he peered out the passenger window of the van.

Beakley was after a man suspected of being part of the largest drug ring in the history of Tacoma.

The ring of 50 people - mostly Cubans - controls a multimillion-dollar crack cocaine trade that operates primarily in the Hilltop area, police said.

All the group's members deal drugs as a primary occupation, according to Beakley.

Most members are known as Marielitos, who came to the United States in a boat lift from

Mariel, Cuba, in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

In the past few days, 25 people - including three women - have been arrested. They were charged late yesterday in Pierce County Superior Court with delivery of a controlled substance.

The man who fled the grocery store would have been arrest No. 26. But he got away.

``These guys can disappear into the crack of a sidewalk,'' Beakley said.

The suspect in question, in his late 30s, was once part of the higher echelons of the ring but had recently lost rank. ``He started using his own product, and that's the downfall of a good drug dealer,'' Beakley said.

The group - which has no name - operates something like the OPEC oil cartel, with high-ranking members getting together periodically to set the price of their product, police say.

In this case, however, the product is rock cocaine.

The group distributes to drug-dealing gang members on the street and to crack houses from Seattle to Auburn, although most of the trafficking is in Tacoma' Hilltop area, said police spokesman Mark Mann, who called ring members the ``biggest drug dealers'' in the city's history.

Police began targeting the group last August, with the help of informants.

Although the group lacks a headquarters, a fair amount of trafficking by ringleaders allegedly took place in the 1100 block of South K Street, police said.

Police raided two businesses there late Thursday, arresting one owner.

In addition to the arrests, police have seized four cars - including two Cadillac Sevilles - and $26,000 in cash.

The group gets its supply of cocaine from Miami, Los Angeles and Colombia, police said.

If convicted, the suspects face between two and 10 years in prison, depending on their criminal history, according to the Pierce County prosecutor's office.

It has not yet been determined if the suspects will be tried separately or as a group, or if conspiracy charges will be filed.

The 25 people arrested were in the Pierce County jail yesterday evening on varying amounts of bail.