More than 100 multistate and international drug rings are operating in Hawai'i, and law enforcement officials are wary about the violence the groups could bring to the Islands.

Between 2004 and 2006, law enforcement officials say they identified 172 multistate and international drug operations that were actively shipping large amounts of product into the state. Of the 172 rings funneling drugs, law enforcement agencies say 31 were broken up and the other 141 were disrupted but are still considered viable.

"We are working with our local, state, and federal law enforcement partners to monitor and dismantle the Mainland and international drug organizations operating in Hawai'i," said Janet L. Kamerman, special agent in charge of the FBI's Honolulu division.

Chinese, Vietnamese, Filipino, Thai and Malaysian gangs recognize that a smaller amount of crystal methamphetamine, or "ice" will produce twice the profit in Hawai'i as on the Mainland, federal agents say. The gangs are also targeting Guam and Saipan, because a pound of ice will sell there for quadruple the Mainland prices.

Groups in California and Nevada with supply lines based in Mexico are importing crystal methamphetamine and cocaine from the West Coast.

"We recently tracked a Mexican national to the Big Island, then to Maui where we arrested him and discovered he was running drugs for a group out of Nashville (Tennessee)," said Larry D. Burnett, director of the Hawai'i High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, a partnership of federal, state and county law-enforcement agencies.

"It is much, much more advanced than you actually think. A lot of our stuff is connected to the West Coast, the Philippines, Thailand, Mexico. ... These are not your corner drug dealers; these are organized groups."

The concern over out-of-state rings comes even as officials are touting a reduction in the ice problem due to aggressive law enforcement efforts.

Four years after the battle against ice became a major statewide issue and Hawai'i's meth problems were among the worst in the nation, officials have said they have made a dent. Ice seizures have tapered off, down to 179 pounds last year from 265 pounds in 2005 and 226 pounds in 2004.

Treatment for ice is also down, with 3,270 adults receiving treatment for crystal methamphetamine addiction in fiscal year 2007, compared with 3,363 in 2006, 3,538 in 2005, 3,136 in 2004 and 3,013 in 2003.

The drop in meth, however, has been linked to an increase in other drug activity, with the amount of crack cocaine seized in Hawai'i this year far surpassing totals for the previous three years.

VIOLENT CRIME RATES

Although violent crime here remains low compared to U.S. cities of comparable size, the concern is that there could be repeats of recent incidents associated with Mainland drug rings, which can be very violent.

In May, 27-year-old Benjamin Grajeda was gunned down in the middle of Kane'ohe Bay Drive by members of a rival drug-trafficking group from Alabama.

Grajeda, of North Hollywood, Calif., had been smuggling hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of cocaine and crystal methamphetamine into the state in hollowed-out VCRs, televisions and stereo equipment.

The man arrested and charged with shooting him more than a dozen times, Jericho Dewon Lindsey, was a known member of a Mainland crystal methamphetamine smuggling ring working on Maui.

It's specifically the type of case that concerns law enforcement here.

"We need to ensure that the type of violence associated with these drug organizations, like the kind we saw in the Grajeda case, does not become commonplace in our Islands," the FBI's Kamerman said.

Lindsey was arrested and charged with two counts of murder in Alabama in 2000 but the charges were later dismissed after witnesses recanted their statements and a judge ruled there was not enough evidence to proceed. Alabama police said in 2000 that the shootings had begun in a parking lot at the corner of a U.S. highway and a city street where more than 100 people had gathered. There were several parties along the city street that night.

One of the victims was killed by a 9mm pistol, and three other people were wounded at that location, according to police in Mobile, Ala. The second victim was killed nearby with an AK-47, and the person riding with him was wounded, according to a Mobile newspaper's report at the time.

Recently, a detective with the Honolulu police department traveled to Mobile in search of a third suspect wanted in connection with Grajeda's murder.

LUCRATIVE MARKET

The Mainland drug rings are attracted to Hawai'i for the premium they can charge for ice sold here. According to the DEA, a pound of crystal meth sells in the western United States for $7,000 to $10,000. The same pound could fetch as much as $15,000 to $22,000 in Hawai'i, making the state a lucrative target market for criminal enterprises seeking to increase drug sale profits.

Ice is sold at the street level in quarter-gram, half-gram, gram, "teener" (1.75 grams), and "eight-ball" (3.75 grams) amounts, according to law enforcement. In Hawai'i, a quarter-gram retails for about $45, a half-gram costs $75 and a gram costs $100.

A quarter-gram that sells for $40 on Hawai'i streets costs roughly 70 cents to make in Asia.

A criminal justice expert here said the violence associated with the international and Mainland rings arises from the brutal competition for turf.

"A corporation may experience a hostile takeover; imagine how hostile it would be if there were no laws governing the transition. That's how drug organizations operate, through hostile takeovers. They do it because they can," said Ronald F. Becker, an attorney and director of the criminal justice program at Chaminade University. "Considering the young tourist population supplementing the local market, these Islands are a gold mine. The drug industry is unregulated capitalism in its purist form. If there is a demand, a supply will certainly follow."

Law enforcement officials this year have broken up two high-profile rings responsible for smuggling millions of dollars in illegal drugs into the state.

In October, a dozen people were arrested and accused of shipping more than $1.2 million worth of crystal methamphetamine per month from the Philippines and California to Kaua'i.

State, county and federal law enforcement officials coordinated raids on O'ahu, Maui, the Big Island, Kaua'i and in Sacramento, Calif., and apprehended the suspects, who are accused of shipping 40 pounds of ice a month.

The Kaua'i cartel shipped crystal meth from the Philippines using the U.S. mail and human couriers who taped the drugs to their thighs and boarded commercial flights bound for O'ahu.

In June, Honolulu police and federal agents arrested seven people on O'ahu and in Las Vegas in coordinated raids on a suspected narcotics cartel that allegedly shipped more than $350,000 worth of crystal meth-amphetamine from Las Vegas to Honolulu.

Three men were arrested in Las Vegas, and four others in Pupukea and Wahiawa after an indictment accused the group of conspiring to ship more than 10 pounds of ice to Honolulu to sell for profit, according to a law enforcement official and documents filed in U.S. District Court.

Reach Peter Boylan at pboylan@honoluluadvertiser.com.