<p>The leader of a drug ring that smuggled more than 1.5 million tablets of ecstasy from Amsterdam to Atlanta was sentenced Wednesday to 17 years in federal prison.</p><p>Stephen Ashley House, 35, of Kennesaw was the principal organizer of the largest importation and distribution ring of the recreational drug in the Southeast between 1997 and 2001, making profits of $12 million, U.S. Attorney David Nahmias said.</p><p>The organization employed couriers who strapped vacuum-sealed bags of tablets to their bodies on international flights from Europe, and later used Russian shipping contacts to hide the drug on container ships to Canada before driving it to Atlanta hidden in spare tire compartments and gasoline tanks, Nahmias said.</p><p>House was known as "Captain America" among drug dealers in Amsterdam because of his ability to smuggle such large quantities of ecstasy into the United States.</p><p>The arrest of a courier in Florida in 2000 led to the the seizure of 24 kilograms of tablets, worth about $2 million, in the attic of a house in Broussard, Canada.</p><p>Evidence showed that the ring also hid the drug inside furniture shipped from Copenhagen to Atlanta, where it was distributed to customers in Tennessee, Florida, South Carolina and Alabama.</p><p>House was arrested in January 2003 in Malaga, Spain.</p><p>U.S. District Court Judge Thomas W. Thrash earlier sentenced two other leaders of the organization, Ronnie Loggins, 36, of Riverdale and Ben Vassethi, 30, of Marietta, to 20 years in prison, Nahmias said.</p><p>He said another defendant, Mike Cardin, 37, of Rex, was sentenced to 25 years after Thrash found that he had planted ecsasy tablets and a pistol in the home of a government witness.</p><p>Two defendants remain charged in the case: Cammron Von Odom, 35, of Opp, Ala., who is a fugitive, and Marco Olyves, 39, a Dutch citizen awaiting extradition from India, Nahmias said.</p><p>Twelve others have been sentenced to prison terms ranging from 2 1/2 to 20 years.</p>
