UC Santa Cruz Fraternity, Sorority Suspend Activities After Alleged Student Drug Ring Busted
SANTA CRUZ (CBS SF) -- Six students at University of California, Santa Cruz have been placed on interim suspension after being arrested and accused of running an international drug smuggling ring.
Santa Cruz Police said the students were receiving overseas packages of MDMA, also known as Ecstasy and Molly, shipped through the U.S. Postal Service.
The suspects, all 21 years old, were identified as Cecilia Le, Mariah Dremel, Hoai Nguyen, Benny Liu, Nathan Tieu and, Cesar Casil.
Three fraternity members and three sorority members were arrested Friday, all members of the Lambda Phi Epsilon fraternity and Alpha Kappa Delta Phi sorority.
On Tuesday, a KPIX reporter tried to interview one of the accused students accused but was stopped by his friend outside their residence.
"Get the f*** off my property!"
"Can you tell us about the arrests that were made?"
"Do you guys know you're ruining lives? They're innocent, all right? They haven't even seen their court date yet."
Police said the smuggling likely went on for a while. "This is actually an active and ongoing investigation," said Santa Cruz Police spokeswoman Joyce Blachke. "So they're will be more to follow on this."
Investigators recovered more than four pounds of Ecstasy pills at three different homes police and federal agents raided on Friday, with a street value of $100,000.
The Lambda Phi Epsilon fraternity identifies itself on its website as "the world's largest Asian interest fraternity" while the alpha Kappa Delta Phi sorority states on their website that they are "the largest Asian-American interest sorority in the United States."
Both organizations issued statements saying their UC Santa Cruz chapters suspend activities following the arrests.
"They've told them to cease operating as a fraternity and sorority and not have any events or outreach or anything like that," said UC Santa Cruz spokesman Scott Hernandez-Jason.
Lambda Phi Epsilon and Alpha Kappa Delta Phi also said they have a zero tolerance policy for drugs and other controlled substances and that the incident doesn't reflect their values.
Hernandez-Jason said he couldn't talk about any of the cases against the six students as they are currently being investigated, but confirmed that they could be facing possible suspension or expulsion.
