NEW YORK (AP) -—-
Cocaine people, the police
call them, as if they were a
new species of humanity—
mutunts of the modern era’s
greed and the corruption
thal sustains it.

On the streets of Jackson
Heights in Quetns, these
nervous, furtive men—
mostly Colombians—-wear
bullet-proof vests under
baggy, cheap suils and drive

. second-hand cars 10 blocks

out of the way to buy
discount gas on their way to
six-figure deals to fatten
sevenfigure bank accounts.

They are clannish peuple,
living aut of suitcases in
modest [furnished apart-
ments, harboring an almost
standardized range of
possessions—-six to 10 pounds
of cocaine with street values
of up to $350,000, wads of
$50,000 to $100,000 in twenty-
dolar’ hills, several pistols,
usually a few sawed-off -
shotguns, a machine-gun or
two, and little black books in
whieh they jot $60 spant on a
used TV in red ink next toa
$1-million sale in black ink.

This piclre emerges [rom
a mantt:-long Associated
Press investigatian = in
Jackson Heights ihe un-
disputed capital of cocaine
trade in the United States. It
ip betieved that at Jeasi #1
billion a year in cocaine 1
funnelied through the ance-
quiet, middle-class neigh:
berhoad,

Agents and police in-
terviewed chose not to use
their names as they taiked
about cacaine -the white
powder fevored by the rich
for kieks- -and how il is im-
ported, cut, distributed and
sold. :

Behind this trade are
former farmers and laborers
from Columbia who have
amassed huge Iurtunes wilh
a few months’ work and
who--says # federal agent
who tracked them: fora year
and « half-—‘can dasily
accept the necessity uf a
aurder or two to protect
iheir fortyses.”

Coane dealers have been
directly inked to at least 2?
nrarders in Jacksun Heights
in the last two years.

Their lives have heen
changed, mostly by

American datlars. bul they

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2-Burner Stove

COCAINE

_ New style drug dealers |

remain quiet, caubbous mea
who speak broken Einglish
Unlike Harlem's big herain
dealers, they do not Maurt
their wealth. They slay in-
conspicuous, underground,
changing names and .ad-
dresses as need. '

They are ambitious, ino.
The $i-billion cocaine trade
that federal ~ offiwials
estimate exists in Jackson
Heights is part of a $7-billion
leak in the (5. economy
from vocaine, a figure that
makes Colombian cocaine
second only to Mideast ail as
a drain on dAraerica’s in-
come.

Cocaine peaple ace a nes
breed, say the | law
enfyrcement officials who
are losing al least pive out af
W contests to the drug
dealers. :

“They've Gke ano oin-
ternational carporation, it
conglamerale says aue
agent of the U.S. Drug {1
forcement = Administration
(DIA). "They have more
money {han we do, more.

equipment, Amare
organizalion ... aint more co-
operation froin their

government and eurs.”

The profits from cocaine ”

are big.

A kilo of cucaing sells for
$5,-000 in Bolivia. for $50,000
beiore preecsany in
calambia and retails tor
5590,0) on the streels in the
us.

‘the balance of power may
be shifting, lowever, say
those with the Unified: ie
telligence  Divisinu, a
Iederally co-ordinated group
composed af 3 DEA agents,
Now York (ity polies and
three stale cops.

The division has had past
successes, breaking the
French Connection case and
conducting the investigation
that led to a dfe sentence ior
Nicky Barnes, flashy leader
of the Harlem hernin un-
derwortd

The covaine industry, hens
over, is not like other under-
wards.

‘hots uhe most difficult
channal group (0 pensirate
of any we have ever dealt
with,” says James Judge, a
DEA spokesmen

“They ace ibe tiest group
we've ever pone after: thi
conirals their dope all the

. raked re

way dawn’ (he line” says i
DEA agent, “They control
Ihe cocaine all the way ffom
its mamifacture through ils
export and import right upto
Hs distribution in the U.S.
Americans only enter into
the thing at. the lowest
jevels " : ‘

The Colombian cocaine
cartels buy raw covog 1a vis
from Peru ar Bolivia, own
their own processing plants.
their own private planes,
iheir ww private banhs~-
even ther awn private
polilians

Their power and capacily
ta evade American laws
opts fur anew kind ef jaw
enfurcenien! effort. both
federa) and) eal offteialds
capirent

The police effarl will he

axprinded in coming months

to’ ineiude the Aleohel,
Yabeceo and Firearms’
Aduunistration,  faternsal
ievenur Service, imusigra-
tien and Naturalization
service, Customs and FBI,

The ideas to investigate
sources of legal weapons,
hanks that funael profits
hack mn] Cotombia.
trisinesses (hat aire sarees
of bad and ollepet im
integration

Olficials estimate (hat half
of the 240 dha Colombians in
davksor Heats are ilepal
aliens.

“ALL the real cocaine
heavies in this country live in
Jackson Heights,” says a
DEA agent, Uts imnpessthie
to know just haw much coke
passes Chrough fing coir
munity, except that) the
figures must be incredible,”

The cocume people are
aaouflaged net aaly by oie
Columbians in Jackson
Heights, bul by ather
Hispanis groups who have
transforineédk the former
irisi-dtatian enclave inion a
largely Latin commutity,

‘Tie dealers have access te
community resaurees-~ hey
meet it burs and: sovtal
elabs., boak lights with
tne! agenis, rent apart
nents with ona cestions
asked ater estate alfices.
aad Suy new identities in
siore-trant  olfices ad-
vetuising Uranstations and
TOT VEE LGHIs

‘Poe seen adder Pye ate
auton bail, wetk

into a travel ageney in
Jackson Heights the next
day and came suloun hour
laler a completely different
person, with all the papers to
prove it,” says one federal

agent,

- Because the  cucuine
people are so tightly knit,
they are virtually mpossible
to penetrale, federal agents
gay

They are protected, too, in.

a community where many
are afraid lo falk hecause
they, or their relatives, are
illegal aliens, And the few
Hispanic undercover agents
are most Puerta Hican and
tasily spotted by the
Colombians. ~

“We can only start al the
boltom with these people.”
says u DEA investigator,

“We follow nicknames
written on scraps af paper,
plane Licket stubs, telephone
numbers written in Lhe
margin of the phone book,
whatever we can find lo
build a conspiracy case
against them, which are the
hardest cases to take into
court.”

it is almost impossible to
find an informer among
cocaine people They are
“dhe most brutal underworld
ever,” says one agent,

They yo after an -in-
former's launily fivst, giving
the informer “a chance lo
think about that before they
xi) the informer hitnsell,”

Of the 54 hormiades in
Jackson Heights’
precinct ia the last two
years, al least 27 are linked
fo the eocaine (rade.

“We po to the dead man’s
givl friend, his family, his
friends, but even they are
wually not willing to talk to
us,” says & DEA agent.
“They know they will pay
with their lives H it gets out
that they've given us
any thing."

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_ 635-3396

The Herald, Wednesday, December 6, 1978, Page 7

“Lady Agatha, we can't
go on like this. ..,”

nobody but a cad would
listen further. The only
British thing to do is to
put down the receiver.

service is like no other in
the world. Seldom do you

with your phone, but
mine—-about three times

BRITISH PHONES
~ You think it’s bad here

it’s even worse there

out of five—gives me an
incredible insight into the
upstairs-downstairs — tife
of the British people.

LONDON (CP) —

“But Sir Henry, Claud

KNOWS!"

And now the General
Post Office has the ef-
frontery to suggest that
the price of calls from
coin boxes should go up
from tuppence (that’s
aboot a nickel = in
Canadian coinage) to five
pence (you figure it out).

“Good God!"
At that point, of course,

The British telephone

geta wrong number but— So the post office now is
h, — dedicated to spending
Vines. those crossed about &1 million to

convert the coantry’e
30,000 phone booths to
flvepence pieces.

It's a proposal that isn’t

I don't know how it is

expected to sit well with
the British whe are
perfectly cognizant of the GPO
fact that last year the post
office turn
about &400 million—
which is about $1 billion.

Aha, but you see,
argues the post office, we
lest £30 million on the
coin-box operations.

The GPO points out, “We
also, that the last in-
crease in phone charges
was in October, 1975,

All very well, but last

May the government Lady Agatha, we've
ordered that all phone never met but I feel I
subscribers be given a &7 know you. ... How is Sir

rebate to wipe out &100

million of those profits.

Sir William Barlow,:
chairman, just
won't have criticism of
his firm's profits.

“This is unreasonable
since it is in our
customers’ best interesta
that the post office should
be commercially :
motivated,” he says.

should make
profits io pay for growth
and improvement in our
services and repay
loans." .

a profit of

Henry these days?

BUSINESS DIRECTORY

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