More than a year after the arrests began, Erez, the alleged head of the conspiracy, sits in an Amsterdam jail, where he and his girlfriend, Diana Reicherter, of Franklin Square, are fighting extradition to the United States. With the exception of Reicherter, Erez' former associates and couriers have all pleaded guilty. Nationwide, ecstasy seizures by the U.S. Customs Service have soared from 350,000 tablets a year three years ago to 9.3 million pills a year. In a strange kind of way, the supply, the fact that it is there, has increased demand and lowered the price, Kelly said in an interview. While the profits are high, the risk of imprisonment for smugglers is great as well.
Smugglers caught by the feds face decades in prison.
Those prosecuted in state courts could go away for life under New York's tough drug laws. By the summer of 1999, Shimon Levita could feel the law closing in. According to prosecutors, the arrests of the couriers had soured the tempers of Erez and his band of smugglers. By that June, it seemed the Atlantic Ocean that had put so much distance between Levita and troubles back home had become little more than a shallow moat. Levita had feared he was being watched by the police in New York and Miami, Cusumano said in an interview.