Kingpin Shipped Cocaine in Computers, Authorities Say : Crime: Erick Bozeman is accused of running a vast drug operation. His Leona Valley home may have been a staging area.

Many have made their fortunes in the booming business of computers and information technology, but no one, authorities say, did it quite like Erick Bozeman.

Authorities allege that Bozeman, operating under many aliases and shell corporations in the Cayman Islands and other exotic locales, has made more than $30 million in the past two years by running a ring that hollowed out computers, filled them with cocaine and shipped them nationwide for sale.

Bozeman, they say, was living the high life, buying a $680,000 house in Leona Valley seven miles west of Palmdale with laundered drug proceeds, and spending $150,000 a month on travel, restaurants, business expenses and perks for his many associates until earlier this month.

On July 6, Bozeman was arrested while staying at a Downtown Los Angeles hotel, trying to hide from the FBI after many of his alleged associates had been caught, prosecutors said.

“It was three blocks from the courthouse, which we found kind of funny,” said Janis Gordon, an Atlanta-based assistant U.S. attorney who is leading the multi-state effort to prosecute Bozeman and his alleged associates.

Bozeman and 20 others were indicted July 19 by a federal grand jury in Atlanta, and there are two related cases: a Los Angeles indictment involving alleged money launderers affiliated with the group, and a New York City case that fingers alleged lower-level drug dealers.

According to the indictment, Bozeman--also known as Jason Mitchell, Erick Powell, Buddy Jones and Mr. Harris--masterminded a drug ring that sold more than 2,000 pounds of cocaine, racking up at least $30 million in profits since 1992, then laundering it through more than a dozen offshore bank accounts.

Within weeks, authorities say, Bozeman will be shipped back to Atlanta for prosecution, where he could be sentenced to a mandatory life prison term if convicted under the federal government’s so-called “drug kingpin” statute.

His trial, authorities have hinted in interviews and court documents, will shed light on the shadowy world of a jovial criminal genius. Bozeman blurred the line between white-collar crime and drug dealing as effectively as anyone ever caught by federal authorities, said Kent B. Alexander, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Georgia.

The case started more than a year ago, authorities said, when federal agents in Los Angeles suggested the FBI in Atlanta investigate an alleged co-conspirator, who apparently failed to heed her own advice on a to-do list she wrote.

The note, one of many incriminating documents authorities say they found in the woman’s trash, said: “Get paper shredder.”

Apparently, she never did. FBI agents testified in an Atlanta federal court that in going through the woman’s garbage, they found detailed computer printouts of drugs allegedly bought and sold by the organization, including prices, customer lists and destinations.

From there, they say, they began tracking Bozeman on his trips around the country and overseas, tapping phones and compiling enough evidence to put him away for life.

Authorities allege that Bozeman used Los Angeles and Atlanta as hubs of a criminal enterprise that had all the trappings of a major corporation. They allege that spreadsheets, payrolls, fax machines, computer e-mail networks and other sophisticated means were used to coordinate a drug business that pulled in millions of dollars while employing dozens of associates selling cocaine in Los Angeles, New York and many cities in between.

“It is one of the largest cases we have ever prosecuted and one of the most sophisticated,” Alexander said. “They were not operating out of a file cabinet in an apartment room. It was big business.”

Cornell Price, a lawyer representing Bozeman, said, “The indictment reflects a significant amount of cocaine trafficking, at least allegations of it. But proving it is another matter.

“The allegations don’t sound good. . . . The grand jury has concluded there is some smoke, but I haven’t seen what the grand jury has seen,” said Price, who added that his client won’t enter a plea until he gets to Atlanta.

He described the 31-year-old Bozeman as an articulate, intelligent man, stocky and well-built, with a ready smile and an eye for detail. “He’s got a very sharp, very quick mind,” Price said. “He falls into the smart person category.”

Prosecutors said Bozeman floated from one place to another and spent a lot of time in Los Angeles, although authorities would not say whether the Leona Valley house was a base of operations for the organization. At one place where he was staying, authorities said they found 107 pounds of cocaine.

“He lived wherever he felt like living,” one official said.

Although some of his alleged associates went by names such as “Blue” and “Rock,” authorities said Bozeman was not involved in gangs. “He’s too high-class,” said one, adding that Bozeman was frequently heard on wiretaps saying: “I don’t do retail.”

Bozeman is being held without bail in the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles. Authorities say that because of all his aliases--at least eight they are aware of--Bozeman is a flight risk.

“The other defendants were arrested before he was, and I’m surprised that Mr. Bozeman didn’t leave” the country, Alexander said. “But I’m glad that he will be making an appearance” in court in Atlanta.

In the meantime, authorities are moving to seize the Leona Valley property, four Georgia properties, 19 bank accounts and $30 million in currency.

On Friday, three days after a superseding indictment was handed down in Atlanta, Gordon and other authorities had little comment on the specifics of the case.

But in the 63-page indictment, and in testimony last month before an Atlanta federal judge, Gordon and an FBI agent said authorities have gathered vast amounts of evidence against Bozeman and his many alleged co-conspirators through the use of phone wiretap surveillance--and computer records, including those found in the discarded garbage.

“We are dealing with hundreds and hundreds of kilograms of cocaine,” Gordon told U.S. Magistrate Joel Feldman. “This is a very strong case. Each of these defendants has been wiretapped directly discussing procedures and transfers of money, and on occasion drugs within the Bozeman organization.”

FBI Special Agent Bill Lewis detailed how wiretaps caught Bozeman personally calling drug sources in Cali, Colombia, and placing orders for up to 300 pounds of pure cocaine at a time.

Once the cocaine made its way to Bozeman, authorities and court documents allege, it was packaged into the innards of computers and shipped out to various destinations in huge, bulky packages bearing innocuous corporate logos.

FBI agents waiting outside one location last November watched as the computer boxes were taken inside, then dumped outside after being emptied. The boxes were then sent to the FBI crime lab near Washington, where trace amounts of cocaine were found, authorities said. Later, several similar “computers” were seized at an Atlanta airport, authorities said.

The cocaine would be split up and sold and drug money would be transferred out of the country to the Cayman Islands, the Bahamas and Antigua, laundered and shipped or carried back to Bozeman and his lieutenants, court documents and authorities allege.

According to some records obtained from the trash, the organization’s Atlanta operation made about $1 million between May 10 and July 27, 1993, and spent well over half a million dollars on administrative and office expenses, including cellular phones, pagers, salaries and “family support,” the indictment reads.

When FBI agents began following Bozeman around the country and listening to his cellular phone conversations, authorities said, they learned a lot about his many girlfriends--he has several children but no current wife, they believe--and his taste for the good life.

On one conversation, authorities allege, Bozeman boasted of winning $50,000 on one of his many trips to Las Vegas. They also learned more than they really wanted to about his trip to a ritzy Hawaiian resort.

“It was so expensive, we freaked out when we heard,” said one official familiar with the case. “It was unbelievably expensive. It would be a lifetime before we could spend that much money.”