Multi-Ton Marijuana Smuggling Ring Broken

Federal authorities have broken a smuggling operation so sophisticated it used a computer in a Mercer Island apartment to monitor costs and record the details of a delivery of 62 tons of marijuana to Anacortes.

Unsealing of a grand jury indictment Thursday, charging 29 participants in the ring, ended a 3 1/2-year investigation that utilized five undercover informants and numerous agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

Records of a Federal Bureau of Investigation money-laundering probe, which surfaced in Renton earlier this year, demonstrate the sheer size of the operation.

FBI agents there arrested two members of the ring and seized several suitcases containing more than $7 million in cash.

That money was to be delivered to Brian Peter Daniels, the supplier of a 1987 shipment of marijuana from Thailand to the ring.

But it was only to be partial payment for that load, court records there indicate. Daniels pleaded guilty here in December to smuggling 200 tons of marijuana through the West Coast between 1984 and 1988.

He has been described as the world's largest wholesaler of marijuana from Southeast Asia. Court records here indicate another source, who was not identified, supplied the marijuana the ring smuggled into the country in 1986.

Both shipments were off-loaded from a ``mother ship'' to fishing vessels working the fishing season in the Gulf of Alaska, according to court records.

The 1986 shipment of 40,000 pounds, delivered over the Labor Day weekend, was so large it filled two truck-trailer rigs that headed south out of Anacortes.

The 1987 shipment of 42 tons was transferred at sea from the unidentified mother ship to the fishing vessel Stormbird in 2,200 fish boxes.

Because ringleaders believed law enforcement authorities were aware of their activities, the Blue Fin, another fishing vessel, met the Stormbird in Alaskan waters and took the shipment aboard.

Four ring members have been arrested here, one in Hawaii and others are expected to surrender, said Mark Bartlett, an assistant United States attorney.

Arrest warrants have been issued for brothers Christopher and William Shaffer, described as leaders of the ring. Christopher Shaffer is also sought on a warrant issued in Northern California earlier this year for a 1983 multi-ton shipment of marijuana.

Search warrants have been used by the DEA to search a Bellevue home, several in California and another in Hawaii.

Other defendants, in addition to the Shaffers, are Terrance Restal, Anthony Franulovich, Rolf Cartharius, Tracy Brown, Mark Balsiger, Gawain Booth, Rocky Barnett, Michael Carter, Gary Waldon, Leslie Berkowitz, Robert Schaer, Brian Odea and Brian Donohue.

Also, Robert Mack, Patricia LaVay, John Locke, Jerry Myers, Harold Nathan, Robert and Richard Frederickson, Franklin Graf, Richard Heggem, Bradley Naylor, George Neilan Scott Stewart, Ed McClosh and James Carroll.