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 News from Around the Americas | April 2007 
Fugitive's Capture Turned Into Mission
 Colin McDonald - Seattle P-I
| | For 13 years, accused drug kingpin eluded the law - until last week. |
He was the most prolific hashish smuggler the Northwest has ever seen, say U.S. marshals and federal investigators.
For years, they say, Jeffery Jay Warren orchestrated the rapid movement of the opiate from Southeast Asia by ocean freighters, a fleet of Willapa Bay "fishing" boats and trucks. Tons of the illicit cargo were hauled through Washington en route to East Coast and Canadian markets.
Authorities considered Warren, 56, the chief architect of a sophisticated drug-trafficking organization that prospered in the early '90s, making drug deals with wholesale prices estimated at more than $100 million.
A coast-to-coast bust in 1994 nailed most of Warren's operatives - but he managed to elude capture. Since then, a copy of Warren's wanted poster slowly yellowed on the bulletin board in the Marshals Service's Seattle office.
"We wanted him bad," said Deputy Marshal Tomas Lanier, who has been hunting for the fugitive since joining the agency a decade ago.
With the whole office working on the case at times, and information coming in from the U.S. Customs Department, the Drug Enforcement Administration and local law enforcement, Warren still managed to give them all the slip.
His pursuers chased down tantalizing rumors of the kingpin's whereabouts: his favorite haunts, the luxury resort towns in coastal Mexico where he was reputed to be taking residence. The trail led investigators across the globe. There was evidence that Warren had been traveling extensively in South America and Europe. He apparently liked being near the ocean and in warm climates.
Warren's family in the U.S. said the Michigan native simply had disappeared, but not before deeding all his property to his wife.
Complicating matters, marshals also knew he'd been living under a false name and a completely new identity. Worse, he spoke fluent Spanish and didn't cause trouble for local authorities. And he didn't stay in one place for long - there was never a permanent address.
The feds even staked out Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, to no avail.
"A number of different times we heard that Warren was attending AA meetings and was heavily involved in AA," Lanier said.
But every lead - from Warren's friends, other investigative agencies and suspected drug dealers facing decades of prison time - only proved the fugitive was living somewhere in several different cities or beachside resorts in Mexico.
Lanier won't say what finally led them to Warren ("It wasn't anything he did"), but at 3 a.m. last Wednesday, he was taken into custody. Mexican authorities put him in handcuffs as he was returning to his condo in Punta De Mita, a few miles north of Puerto Vallarta.
He's now sitting in a jail cell in Mexico City facing extradition to the U.S. - and a possible life sentence.
The next night, Lanier and fellow Seattle marshals went out for long-awaited celebratory margaritas.
They say some of the credit for the arrest goes to their new office in Mexico City, which has allowed their agency to work on a day-to-day basis with local law enforcement. The daily presence has made it much easier to persuade local law enforcement and the courts to approve the arrests of those living in Mexico.
Approval to make arrests outside the U.S. from the Justice Department and State Department can take months. Warren was no exception.
"We have known what we believe to be his address for a couple months," Lanier said. "We were very tight-lipped about it. Only us and Mexico knew."
'Old hippies'
When the indictment was handed down in 1994, 16 people - including Warren - were charged in connection with the drug-smuggling ring.
Two years earlier, federal agents had estimated the ring had moved 40 tons of hashish through the fishing port of South Bend in southwest Washington. The estimated wholesale value: $120 million.
Eventually, agents were able to confiscate 50,000 pounds from another shipment destined for a warehouse in Brooklyn, N.Y. That bust was used to support the 31-count indictment.
"These guys had been dumping big loads for at least four years," Lanier said.
He called them "old hippies," now in their mid- to late-50s, who had been smuggling marijuana and hashish into the country since the 1970s.
But the smugglers had their act together. Using fishing boats and an old fishing dock and warehouse at the head of Willapa Bay as a false front, Warren's team of ship captains, deckhands, truck drivers and radio operators moved the drugs from ocean freighters sitting hundreds of miles off the coast to waiting semis. Within a week, the drugs would be in New York.
Locals thought the fishhouse with no ice was odd but didn't ask many questions. The strangers paid for the equipment and service with crisp $100 bills.
"The (fishing) market was bad and anyone who came in and wanted to make a go of it got treated real good," said Jerry Benning, retired Pacific County sheriff. In 1994, Benning was the local law enforcement contact for the federal agents who raided the warehouse.
"By the time we got there, there was nothing but empty sacks," Benning recalled.
Cash-filled suitcases
Speed and deception was at the core of Warren's operation.
His group could unload 45 tons of drugs in an evening and have it in and out of Washington in less then 12 hours, authorities say.
The group would send out decoy fishing boats so the Coast Guard wouldn't know which boat to track, said Fran Dyer, a retired agent from the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force, who started working on the Warren case in the early 1990s.
"They were very good fishermen, but there is a hell of a lot more money to be made in moving 50,000 pounds of hashish in one night than fishing," Dyer said.
Of those named in the indictment, 12 have been apprehended and prosecuted. The sentences ranged from a couple of years to 30.
Warren remained a priority because it's believed he provided the organization and money to make the operations work. For example, he's accused of coming up with the $10,000 to buy the brand-new tuna boat, the Kila Kila, that was used to ferry drugs. Later, he either provided or carried the suitcases full of money around the state to pay the organization's helpers.
"What motivates them is the money and the lifestyle that goes along with that money," said Dyer, who has spent 30 years investigating drug smugglers.
Warren is expected to challenge every move the government makes with the best lawyers money can buy. But authorities are confident that he won't escape justice this time.
"There are times when you don't get everyone," Dyer said. "You obviously then try to get the people at the top - and Warren was obviously one of those."
P-I reporter Colin McDonald can be reached at 206-448-8312 or colinmcdonald@seattlepi.com. |
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