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DEA: Artwork, furniture used to smuggle heroin

More than 70 arrested in suspected Colombian ring

From Carol Cratty
CNN

Heroin was hidden inside artwork, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration.

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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Drug Enforcement Administration announced the arrest Wednesday of 78 people as part of a probe into a suspected Colombian heroin ring accused of using artwork, furniture and clothing to smuggle drugs into the United States.

The yearlong investigation, called Operation High Step because some drugs were found in dancing shoes, also resulted in the seizure of 78 kilograms of heroin, according to the DEA.

Arrests took place in Colombia and the United States, the DEA said. Nineteen Colombians are among those arrested, according to the agency, and they will be subject to extradition to the United States. The DEA said it worked with the Colombian National Police on the investigation.

Operation High Step also netted the seizure of 39 kilograms of cocaine, $1.4 million in U.S. currency and 20 weapons, the DEA said.

The alleged traffickers used sophisticated methods to smuggle heroin into the United States, a DEA statement said.

Heroin bricks were hidden inside the frames of paintings, secreted in furniture and sewn into clothing and shoes. One official said the alleged ring sometimes put a heroin-laced coating on furniture and paintings. Once items arrived in the United States, others would retrieve heroin from that coating.

"Behind the allure of artwork lurked the poison of heroin," DEA Administrator Karen Tandy said in the statement. "Heroin promises anything but beauty -- forcing addiction, pain and devastation on its users."

Law enforcement estimates the alleged ring moved 25 kilograms of heroin each month into the United States, where it then was processed before being sold.

Each kilogram would result in 25,000 hits of heroin on the streets of U.S. cities, the DEA said.

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