U.S. meth roundup snares 24 in Western Washington

Western Washington is increasingly becoming a methamphetamine-sales staging ground. Drug dealers bring meth produced in "super-labs" in Mexico up the Interstate 5 corridor and, from here, smuggle it to the East Coast, federal officials said yesterday.

Last week, federal agents teamed up with state and local law-enforcement agencies to launch "Operation Wildfire," the country's first coordinated roundup of meth producers and dealers.

Of the 427 people arrested last week in more than 200 U.S. cities, 24 were taken into custody in Western Washington. Most of those people were arrested in south King and Whatcom counties, Rod Benson, this region's special-agent-in-charge for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), said at a news conference yesterday in Seattle. Forty-three were arrested in Eastern Washington, Alaska, Idaho and Oregon.

"Methamphetamine is clearly an evil, destructive drug that poses a very serious threat to the U.S. ... and throughout the Pacific Northwest," he said. "It's highly addictive, it appeals to a large cross section of the population [and it gives users a feeling of] intense euphoria and energy."

Officials here executed six search warrants and a handful of consent searches, seizing "15-plus pounds of methamphetamine, over two pounds of crystal meth, six pounds of cocaine and five pounds of marijuana," said John McKay, the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington. They also confiscated several guns and more than $40,000 in cash, he said.

Nationally, 96 search warrants were executed, with Operation Wildfire netting 209 pounds of meth as well as base ingredients for the drug, including more than 224,000 ephedrine tablets and more than 200,000 pseudoephedrine tablets, according to a U.S. Department of Justice news release. In addition, 123 weapons were found, and more than $255,000 in cash was seized.

Ten of the 24 people arrested here will face federal charges, McKay said. As for the remainder, he said attorneys were still trying to decide whether those suspects will be charged in federal or state court.

Benson added that most of those arrested are drug traffickers from Mexico and that some may be here illegally.

King County Sheriff Sue Rahr, who also was at yesterday's news conference, said that in the past couple of years, law-enforcement agencies in the state have made significant progress in targeting meth labs.

"As we've shut down the labs, we're seeing meth coming up," Rahr said.

McKay said his office too has noticed "something of a trend" with a "shift from home-cooked methamphetamine" to an increased amount of meth that is "being produced in super-labs," most of them in Mexico.

He has already assigned one of his deputies to head a new unit to focus on federal meth prosecutions, especially those involving international and interstate conspiracies to distribute the drug.

Washington and Oregon both "have pretty significant user populations" for methamphetamine, Benson said. Western Washington in particular is "a staging point," with larger quantities of meth being found here destined "for the Eastern seaboard for distribution there," he said.

"It's clearly heated up and it's clearly spreading east," Rahr added.

Sara Jean Green: 206-515-5654 or sgreen@seattletimes.com