Six UC Santa Cruz Students Arrested in $100,000 Ecstasy Drug Bust

Six UC Santa Cruz students were arrested last Friday for being a part of a suspected drug ring.

The bust also uncovered 5,000 tablets of ecstasy valued at $100,000, according to police. Over 4.1 pounds of drugs were seized, reported SFGate.

The students were part of affiliate campus Greek organizations Alpha Kappa Delta Phi and Lambda Phi Epsilon.

The suspects have been identified as Benny Liu, Cesar Casil, Cecilia Le, Hoa Nguyen, Mariah Dremel and Nathan Tieu, who are all 21 years old. The group was booked at the Santa Cruz County Main Jail on Friday.

Working with Homeland Security and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, policed learned that multiple packages containing MDMA were sent in the last few weeks to three Santa Cruz locations — all located off-campus on the 400 block of Locust Street, 200 block of Castillion Terrace and 100 block of Peach Terrace.

Police were able to intercept one of the packages before it reached its destination and were able to obtain search warrants for each location, which along with help from the Drug Enforcement Agency, led to the arrests. It is believed that the fraternity and sorority were working together.

MDMA, a synthetic drug often associated with rave culture, has risen in use in recent years.

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