The bags were checked through, and unless they were hand-searched, the smugglers were home free.
Or so they thought. Almost from the get-go, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Customs Service and the New York City Police Department were on Erez's tail.
"We received information from a confidential source that Sean Erez was getting ready to leave jail [on a 1998 drug conviction] and that it was his intention to travel to the Netherlands to set up his network," said the DEA's Gagne.
So, in what U.S. officials say was a successful new partnership, they began working closely with Dutch investigators, sharing witnesses and evidence, particularly evidence gleaned by listening in on Erez's phone conversations in the Netherlands, where wiretaps are easier to obtain than in the United States, Lacewell said.
They heard how Hasidic couriers would arrive at airports in Brussels or Amsterdam and be given a pager or number and a name such as "Mutty" or "Chaim" to call. They would then go to a hotel, where one of Erez's people would meet them, and often hand over a suitcase full of drugs.
The couriers would take the suitcase to New York, or occasionally Miami, and wait for someone to identify himself using a password such as "Goombah" or "Adidas." Then they'd pass along drugs. Sometimes, they'd also run drug profits back to Europe.
Court documents show that the couriers often were deliberately incurious about the illegal load they were carrying. One smuggler asked his contact why the suitcase was so heavy. "A lot of shoes had been packed," he was told. The discussion stopped there.
The wiretaps also offer a glimpse into an organization that could run to the almost laughably amateur. Those sent to receive the drugs at airports sometimes ran late and missed their arriving contacts. One 18-year-old courier waited to take flights on which he could get student discounts. Wiretapped phone conversations reveal Erez and his lieutenants obsessed with finding cheap plane, train and bus fares as they attempted to sidestep airports and cities they deemed "hot."
Still, Erez, a dark-haired domineering man whom Gagne describes as "a very good businessman with an outgoing personality," did a remarkable job of setting up a large drug-smuggling operation in such a short time, Gagne said.
