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By Lookout Staff

July 1 -- What started as a few low-level drug busts in Santa Monica and West LA has led authorities to one of the biggest Ecstasy import rings in the region.

Alexandru Sabau, 37, who was taken into custody by Santa Monica police and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, faces charges in federal court stemming from his role in a scheme to smuggle Ecstasy into the United States from Canada and exchange it for caches of cocaine.

The charges brought by the United States Attorney's Office for the Central District of California stem from a three-month joint undercover probe, police said.

"This investigation arose from several low level narcotics cases in the Santa Monica and West Los Angeles area," said Lieutenant Doug Theus, Commander of the Santa Monica Police Department's Office of Special Enforcement.

"We believe our collaborative efforts with ICE are what led to the successful capture of this Ecstasy supplier."

Sabau was arrested near his Newport Beach apartment at 9129 Residencia Street after he arrived for a roadside meeting with an informant to finalize a deal to trade Ecstasy for 25 kilograms of cocaine, authorities said.

Inside the trunk of Sabau's rental car authorities found approximately 100,000 Ecstasy tablets. At the going price of $20 a tablet, the cache would have brought as much as $2 million in street sales, authorities said.

Agents subsequently executed a federal search warrant at Sabau's residence and discovered a small amount of cocaine and approximately $14,000 in cash, authorities said.

Sabau is charged in a criminal complaint with conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance. If convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of up to 20 years in prison. The investigation into the drug trafficking scheme is ongoing.

"We believe this individual was seeking to bring significant quantities of Ecstasy into Southern California from Canada, which he told our informants he intended to use as collateral to obtain caches of cocaine for export back to Canada," said Robert Schoch, special agent in charge for the ICE office of investigations in Los Angeles.

"These substances not only pose a significant public safety risk, they also generate huge profits that are often funneled back into other types of illegal activity,” Schoch said.

Ecstasy is the common name for 3,4 methylenedioxymethamphetamine, also known as MDMA, a synthetic drug chemically similar to the stimulant methamphetamine and the hallucinogen mescaline.