A certain look and a seconds-long conversation laced with street slang was all it took for undercover agents and detectives to score drugs on Seattle streets at the beginning of an eight-month joint operation by Seattle police and the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

But by early this month, word had spread that officials were cracking down on so-called open-air drug dealing, and those same undercover officers could spend up to an hour looking for someone willing to sell them black-tar heroin or crack cocaine — proof, said one DEA agent, that the operation had succeeded in disrupting the local drug market.

At a news conference at the Seattle Police Department's downtown headquarters this morning, police Chief Gil Kerlikowske, DEA Special Agent in Charge Rodney Benson, representatives from the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Washington, and agents and detectives who participated in the drug buys announced the arrests of 403 people, including 14 juveniles, since mid-September.

Of those arrested, 239 had prior drug arrests, and of those, 39 had been arrested 10 or more times for drug violations, 86 were considered violent drug offenders, and 46 had been previously charged for weapons violations, Benson said. At least 25 of the arrestees admitted they were members of gangs, he said.

In all, the joint operation netted 1,729 grams of cocaine and 1,596 grams of heroin with a combined street value of more than $400,000, officials said. Fourteen guns, 21 vehicles and $65,000 in cash were also seized.

One man who was arrested for selling crack to an undercover detective had a note in his pocket that was used to demand money from bank tellers, and he's since been charged with four bank robberies, Kerlikowske said. Another man arrested on drug charges, he said, is a Level 3 sex offender.

Since 1995, the DEA has launched nearly 500 operations with law-enforcement agencies nationwide to respond to the problems of drug dealing and violent crime often associated with drugs, Benson said. The Seattle operation, based on the number of arrests and seizures, was the most successful operation, he said.

Citizens' complaints, especially from business owners frustrated by aggressive and territorial drug dealers who were scaring off their customers, helped focus the efforts of the team of 18 police detectives and eight DEA agents on neighborhoods across Seattle, from The Ave in the University District to the downtown Pike-Pine corridors, the chief said.

King County prosecutors have already filed charges against 150 suspects, said Erin Becker, the chairwoman of the prosecutor's drug unit. So far, three cases have been referred to federal prosecutors, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeff Sullivan said.

Even though many of the arrests resulted from the sale of only $10 or $20 worth of drugs to the undercover officers, Benson said those "street-level" cases have "resulted in a significant number of major, long-term investigations that we're working on right now," which are primarily aimed at people higher up on the drug-dealing food chain.

Initially, said Bill — a DEA agent who used a pseudonym to protect his undercover identity — "it was very easy and very quick to make a buy on the street," sometimes in as little as 10 seconds.

By the time the main operation wrapped up in early May, it would take "30 minutes, 40 minutes, an hour to find a dealer," Bill said.

"The demand for drugs is definitely there, and it will be important to continue to hammer at them," he said of drug dealers. "We're ready to hit it again and again until they get the idea it's not too safe to sell drugs here."

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

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