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March 31 - More than 130 people were arrested today in a two-nation crackdown on a huge drug trafficking ring that manufactured large quantities of Ecstasy and marijuana in Canada and then shipped them to cities around the United States. One outcome of this three-year investigation, called Operation Candy Box, was the discovery that Ecstasy trafficking, which had largely been controlled by Russian and Israeli gangs, had now spread to groups with ties to Southeast Asia. The two principal targets of this investigation were Ze Wai Wong, a Chinese national, and Mai Phuong Le, a Vietnamese national.
A second outcome of the operation was the disruption of a sizable money laundering business and the discovery of significant weaknesses in the U.S. financial system that make money laundering possible. The Drug Enforcement Administration, under its Administrator, Karen Tandy, has made financial investigations a priority of the agency.
Operation Candy Box, which started with some intelligence passed on to American authorities, was initiated in the U.S. in May 2001 by DEA and FBI agents in New York City. It eventually became an operation which encompassed 16 cities in the U.S. and three in Canada. The large number of arrests was only part of the story of Operation Candy Box. The investigation also resulted in the seizure of large quantities of drugs and organizational assets, including manufacturing labs.
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