SAN DIEGO — The undercover officers started to appear at San Diego State fraternity parties about six months ago.
They dressed like students, complained about their parents and professors, and talked freely and knowingly of things of great interest on campus: music, sex and drugs.
Soon they were accepted, with no questions asked. They were spotted at student hangouts on and off campus. They swapped cellphone numbers with other partygoers. They text-messaged their newfound friends.
The real students appeared to accept the pretend ones -- most but not all of whom were men. On a campus of 34,000 students, blending into the crowd was not difficult. Neither was collecting evidence of drug dealing and drug use.
On Tuesday, authorities announced that 96 young men -- including 75 students -- had been arrested on a variety of drug charges as a result of Operation Sudden Fall, which infiltrated seven fraternities on Fraternity Row and Fraternity Circle. Officials said the name of the operation referred to the prospect of sudden death from drug usage.
The investigation involved marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine and Ecstasy.
One of the alleged drug dealers is 19 and recently had been praised as a model student in a university publication. Another was just a month away from earning a master's degree in homeland security and had worked with the campus police as a security officer. One allegedly was selling cocaine to high school students.
A criminal justice major was arrested on suspicion of possession of cocaine. As he was being arrested, he asked officers if this would hurt his chances for a law enforcement career, officials said.
Among the suspected drug dealers is Omar Castaneda, 36, who is not a student and is allegedly connected to a gang in Pacoima that has possible ties to the Mexican Mafia, said Ralph W. Partridge, a special-agent-in-charge for the Drug Enforcement Administration in San Diego.
"This operation shows how accessible and pervasive illegal drugs continue to be on our college campuses and how common it is for students to be selling to other students," said San Diego County Dist. Atty. Bonnie Dumanis.
University police began the investigation a year ago after a 19-year-old female student died of cocaine and ethanol intoxication, San Diego State President Stephen Weber said at a news conference Tuesday morning at the district attorney's office.
