The narcotics police are getting ready to close Chalice Veronica's import operation.

The men wore jackets identifying them as narcotics police, and said they shouted for the soldiers to hold their fire, the officials said.

There were eight of us aboard, some American Drug Enforcement Administration agents, some Bolivian narcotics police and yours truly, a novelist looking for a plot line.

Mr. Johnson, whose office prosecuted the case criticized by Justice Berkman, also said the profiles of criminal behavior used by narcotics police could "absolutely be racially inspired."

Unfortunately, drug-arrest figures depend on the number of narcotics police and the instructions or hints given to the police force.

"To be a Chinese is to know the pain of the history of drugs," said Chen Cunyi, a director of the narcotics police in Yunnan Province.

The dragnets of the narcotics police are sweeping in more women from a growing cottage drug industry in ghetto neighborhoods.

Several major Cancun hotels were seized by the narcotics police last fall.

No one suspected the trap, and when the dealers arrived, local narcotics police and American agents were waiting to make quick arrests.

In New York, as elsewhere, officials struck at dealers by flooding streets with narcotics police, tripling drug arrests and seeking tougher jail terms.