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One student was about to graduate with a degree in criminal justice, said Special Agent Ralph Partridge of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, which took part on the operation. Another was studying for a master’s degree in homeland security.

75 Students Arrested in Drug Raid
By WILL CARLESS

SAN DIEGO — Seventy-five students at San Diego State University have been arrested on drug and weapons charges in an undercover operation that grew out of a student’s death from a cocaine overdose last year, law enforcement authorities said on Tuesday.

The operation netted more than $100,000 worth of cocaine, marijuana and ecstasy and several weapons, including a shotgun and four handguns, said Damon Mosler, chief of the narcotics division of the San Diego district attorney’s office.

“They were blatant,” Mr. Mosler said of those arrested, including an additional 21 nonstudents, among them a known member of a Los Angeles gang with ties to Mexican drug cartels. “I think that they thought they weren’t going to be scrutinized at all.

“They were naïve,” Mr. Mosler added. “They were businesslike, but they were naïve.”

Several suspects belonged to one of three university fraternities, Theta Chi, Phi Kappa Psi and Delta Sigma Pi, and lived along Fraternity Row, a cluster of ramshackle fraternity houses that abuts the university campus.

Those arrested faced a variety of felony charges in the sale of cocaine, ecstasy or marijuana. The charges carry maximum sentences of four years in prison upon conviction.

Mr. Mosler said that some suspects were caught selling drugs to undercover officers, and that he was considering bringing gang charges against them because of the highly organized nature of the dealing out of the fraternities.