SANTA CRUZ — An illegal Ecstasy drug ring involving UC Santa Cruz fraternity and sorority members was busted Friday night, Santa Cruz police said.
Working in conjunction with Homeland Security Investigations, the US Drug Enforcement Administration and the US Postal Inspection Service-San Jose Team, the Santa Cruz Police Department Neighborhood Enforcement Team arrested Mariah Dremel, Benny Liu, Cesar Casil, Nathan Tieu, Cecilia Le and Hoai Nguyen, all 21, on suspicion of various drug conspiracy and possession charges. The students are members of the affiliated Lambda Phi Epsilon fraternity and alpha Kappa Delta Phi sorority, police said.
Police were alerted to suspicious packages traveling through the U.S. Postal Service in recent weeks, shipped from overseas to three Santa Cruz addresses.
Further investigation showed the packages contained the illegal drug MDMA, also known as Ecstasy or Molly. Police followed deliveries to residences in the 400 block of Locust Street, 200 block of Castillion Terrace and 100 block of Peach Terrace and seized more than $100,000 in MDMA, weighing 4.1 pounds with about 5,000 tablets, according to police.
Homeland Security also intercepted another large shipment to Santa Cruz on Friday. —— (c)2016 the Santa Cruz Sentinel (Scotts Valley, Calif.) Visit the Santa Cruz Sentinel (Scotts Valley, Calif.) at www.santacruzsentinel.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. AMX-2016-03-08T05:16:00-05:00
