Probe Nets Major Drug Ring

An elusive international drug dealer and 30 other people in California and Hawaii were arrested after a two-year federal investigation dubbed “Operation Doctor Wu,” officials announced Friday.

The ring leader, “Doctor Wu,” was named in an indictment unsealed Friday as Baron Michael Angelo Suarez-Rothschild. He was being held in Singapore and authorities were seeking to extradite him to the United States, said Misha Piastro, a special agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration.

“He’s a fairly elusive international drug trafficker that we’ve suspected of drug trafficking since the early 1980s,” Piastro said.

Investigators believe Suarez-Rothschild, who also goes by the name Michael Grabarak, is about 53 years old, Piastro said. He carried a U.S. passport, but his true nationality and identity were unclear. Prosecutors said the name “Doctor Wu” came from a song by the band Steely Dan. Suarez-Rothschild was being held for allegedly trying to send more than 2 pounds of cocaine through the mail from San Diego to Singapore, Piastro said.

His pending extradition to the United States “is probably a relief to him,” Piastro said, because Singapore imposes the death penalty for anyone caught with even small amounts of illegal drugs.

For two years, investigators tracked a ring that distributed cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana in Southern California and shipped drugs to Hawaii and Singapore.

Suarez-Rothschild’s organization had ties, not only to Hawaii and Singapore, but to Australia and other countries in the Far East, Piastro said.

“This organization was moving millions of dollars worth of drugs on a yearly basis,” he said. “In one day alone, on April 1, we seized approximately half a million dollars. That’s in one day.”

In searches carried out Thursday, federal and local law enforcement agencies arrested 22 people in San Diego County, U.S. Atty. Carol Lam said. Raids in Hawaii led to the arrests of eight people.

“The arrests today have significantly impacted the flow of cocaine, methamphetamine and high-grade marijuana in San Diego County,” Lam said.

Lam said 24 of the suspects have been indicted on charges of conspiracy to import and distribute the drugs, and money laundering.

Authorities seized more than 13 pounds of cocaine, 2 pounds of methamphetamine and about 30 pounds of high-grade marijuana. They also found about $747,000 in suspected drug proceeds and 20 weapons, including nine assault rifles. The operation involved overlapping drug-distribution cells in San Diego, Ventura, and Riverside counties, as well as Hawaii and Canada, Lam said.

The California suspects named in the indictments were: Luz Juaregui, Kelley Schlager, Steven Potts and Victor Neyra Mata of San Diego; Jose Estolano of Imperial Beach; Tyler Geis of Encinitas; Edward Hohner, James Rouse and Nicholas Mendoza of Oceanside; Chad Adams of San Marcos; Jeffrey Randall of Escondido; and Mark Boyd and Brien Orsburn of Carpinteria.

In Hawaii, the indicted suspects were Rayma Faalealea and Sefo Faalealea of Honolulu; Robert Linder of Pahoa; Brent Weber of Maui; Todd Takata of Kahuku; and Kimberly Deveraux and Douglas Secor of Haleiwa.

Other indicted suspects were: Jarrett Cuff of Oroville, Wash.; Roger Ellingson of Cawston, British Columbia; and Roberto Verber Cota of Tijuana, Mexico.