On the morning of May 27, a swarm of drug agents and police arrived at 7972 Dollman Drive in Penn Hills, where Terrance Larnell Cole lived with his girlfriend, Theresa Harber, and their 8-year-old son.

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Cole had just been indicted on charges of running a massive cocaine ring in Hazelwood for the last 13 years.

During the arrest, an agent mentioned the name of Oliver Beasley, described by Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2002 as the head of the largest drug ring in the history of Western Pennsylvania.

Beasley and his partner, Donald Lyles, are in prison for life.

Cole, who is reputed to have supplied some of Beasley's dealers on the North Side, scoffed at the comparison.

"Beasley's a punk," he said. "I robbed him before and I'll rob him again."

Maybe that was just bravado from Cole, 36, a powerfully built gym rat and self-described "property manager" who grew up in Hazelwood and answers to "T" or "the boss."

But a four-year investigation spearheaded by the state attorney general's organized crime unit in Butler indicates Cole's cocaine empire could surpass any other ever prosecuted in this region.

The case against him, built on thousands of wiretapped phone calls and the grand jury testimony of a dozen underlings, brokers and suppliers, indicates he distributed two tons of cocaine from New York City worth an estimated $40 million from 1991 to 2003.

His deals involved duffel bags full of cash, prosecutors say, including one deal worth $2.5 million. In one case, he called a girlfriend to bring money to a deal. The woman showed up with $200,000 to $250,000 in cash, investigators say.

Cole was unusually clever about covering his tracks, according to agents from the Criminal Investigation Division of the Internal Revenue Service who have been unraveling his finances.

Authorities say he laundered drug money by buying 17 properties worth more than $1 million through his real estate company, T.C. Development in Forest Hills, including an apartment building in East Liberty worth $380,000 and another in Wilkinsburg worth $268,000.

Investigators say he tried to mask drug income by either converting it into casino checks from his gambling splurges in Atlantic City, N.J., and Las Vegas, or by buying other people's winning lottery tickets in Hazelwood.

He also tried to produce evidence of legitimate income by having his associates print up fake receipts from an auto-detailing shop he owned in a Hazelwood back alley.

Never worked legally

State agents say he has never had a legitimate job.

"His description [of himself] as a full-time property manager is based on properties he purchased with drug proceeds," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory Nescott.

Flush with cash and aided by a reputation for violence, which is exhaustively detailed in federal court papers, Cole is reputed to have run his empire like an old-time mafioso, with a judicious mix of bribery and fear.

"Cole and his associates in the past have threatened to harm those who have been suspected of giving information to the police," wrote state drug agent Robert Iuzzolino in a wiretap affidavit. "Cole also had paid money in exchange for a witness's silence."

In fact, witnesses said he's done that many times throughout his career.

His lawyer, Gary Zimmerman, wouldn't discuss the case, saying "it would be improper for me to comment on anything."

But at a detention hearing, he disputed Nescott's allegations that Cole is a dangerous drug lord.

"When Mr. Nescott gave his proffer, it made it sound as if this was one of these airtight cases when the defendant was almost Beelzebub," he told a magistrate. "We don't think he's a danger to the community."

The magistrate did, though, and sent him to jail.

"The unrebutted testimony in this case shows that in the past, witnesses have been both intimidated and threatened," said U.S. Magistrate Francis Caiazza.

A key debate in the case will be heard Tuesday, when Zimmerman and lawyers for two of Cole's accused co-conspirators, Quincy Jones, of Beltzhoover, and Kevin Gray, of Duquesne, will argue that wiretaps on six phones should be thrown out.

The taps intercepted conversations among Cole and several members of his gang, especially his two lieutenants, Garry Smith and Thomas "Fat Tommy" Gilliam.

Zimmerman said the wiretaps, full of obscenity-laced drug jargon, were illegally recorded because agents didn't have probable cause.

The taps were authorized by Superior Court Judge Maureen Lally-Green in 2001 based in part on a previous wiretap of Jones and another Cole underling, Glenn E. Ford II, following undercover drug buys in 2000 and 2001.

Zimmerman is also challenging the grand jury testimony of the witnesses, almost all of whom are criminals trying to cut deals.

Whatever the outcome of the suppression hearing, Cole is certain to go to trial instead of pleading guilty because he knows he is facing life in prison.

Pittsburgh police and the attorney general's office say they have known about Cole's drug dealing for more than a decade. So have the people of Hazelwood.

City Councilman Doug Shields said he met Cole once at his auto shop years ago when Cole was introduced to him as a young man trying to start a "legitimate business" and do something good for the community.

But he said it turned out that Cole and his crew were just another in a long line of Hazelwood drug rings dating to the gang years of the early 1990s.

That list includes such notorious figures as Ronald Sims, 59, former owner of a pool hall on Second Avenue who is now serving 57 months in federal prison on drug charges. On the Cole wiretaps, he is often referred to as "Simsie," and members of Cole's gang were known to hang out at the pool hall.

"The names change, but the organization finds a way to stick around," said Shields. "This is a continuation of the same criminal conspiracy that has been here since I came to this office in 1992. Hazelwood has been a major distribution point for drugs in Allegheny County."

Although Cole has no convictions, he has been arrested for rape, murder and assault. At least seven witnesses have described incidents of violence in his past, including a Beltzhoover firebombing in the early 1990s, a beating in a Market Square clothing store in 1997 and a pistol-whipping at a high school basketball game.

In the mid-1990s, one witness said, Cole went to Mon View Heights in West Mifflin, where he shot and wounded the uncle of a man who owed him $10,000 for cocaine. After the shooting, the witness said, Cole threw his black jacket, gloves and gun off the Glenwood Bridge into the river.

Stories of violence

On the wiretaps, Cole describes the violence he used to enforce his will as "putting on the black." And it has worked.

During a coroner's inquest in 1999, a key witness arrived carrying a gun to testify against Cole and Thomas Craighead, who were charged with the murder of Robert Daniels at Sweet Georgia Brown's Bar in the Hill District.

The man had said he saw Cole hand Craighead a gun before the shooting. But when the witness refused to surrender his gun at the inquest, he was told to leave.

He later recanted his testimony and the district attorney's office was forced to drop the case.

Cole also tried to protect himself in the Daniels case with cash payoffs.

A witness told agents that Cole told him he had given $25,000 to an underling to give to Jason Daniels, Robert's brother. Cole also told the same witness and Cole's brother, Tyke, to take $20,000 to the second victim in the bar, who had survived the shooting.

In addition, the witness said Cole told him to transport the victim to Cole's lawyer to give a sworn affidavit that Cole was not involved in the shooting.

Cole has also paid legal fees for people who have been arrested. After the murder of Omar Massey in 1993, Nescott said, Cole gave a witness between $7,000 and $10,000 to carry to the lawyers of the men charged, Leon Godfrey and Stanford Williams.

Cole then gave the phone number of Massey's girlfriend to the same witness and told him to threaten her.

"The witness did so," said Nescott, "telling her that if she knew what was good for her, she would keep her mouth shut."

Gambling splurges

It's a surprise to no one that Cole has so much cash lying around.

Witnesses have told agents that he regularly traveled to Las Vegas with $30,000 and played the $100 slot machines.

He didn't care if he lost more than he won. What he wanted was the W-2 forms when he did win so he could show some income on his taxes. In some cases, according to the IRS, he used cashier's checks from casinos to buy property in Pittsburgh and rent it out.

He did the same in buying up people's winning lottery tickets on the street. Witnesses have testified that he put the word out that he would buy anyone's winning ticket and pay their taxes, just so he could show income to the IRS.

In all, his lottery and casino winnings between 1995 and 2002 are estimated at more than $1 million.

The wiretaps also show Cole to be an astute leader in trying to head off what he considered unnecessary violence.

In an Aug. 18, 2001 call, for example, he is heard complaining to Smith about two other gang members -- "Dap and Little Mario" -- who opened fire on rivals at Larry's Club in McKeesport. No one was wounded in the shooting, but Cole was outraged at the attention it would bring.

"I'm trying to talk to them, like 'You all ... are stupid as hell,'" Cole said. "You the only game in town and you all making more heat for yourself."

He also said he pulled "Dap" aside and told him he was dumb for killing someone in Hazelwood in another incident.

"You gonna have all the working people that own their houses start tellin' on you indirectly," he warned.

The evidence also indicates the gang members, who call themselves "the family," knew their calls might be monitored by police.

Cole changed the phone number of T.C. Development 10 times, for example, and on all the tapes no one ever mentions the word "cocaine," instead using common street jargon for the drug such as "pies" and "yeh."

Cole knew people had been cooperating with agents in recent years and relied on his old tricks of threats and bribery to protect himself, according to testimony.

For all of the government's mounting evidence, Cole remained confident that he would not be caught.

When one witness received a grand jury subpoena last year, Cole told the man to plead the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination and paid him $5,000 to give to his lawyer.

"They ain't got nothing," he said. "Don't worry."