2 Recaptured 11 Years After Faking Deaths

SAN FRANCISCO — Two alleged international drug dealers who faked their drowning deaths and eluded authorities for 11 years have been recaptured.

Steven Martin Wolosky and Mark Stephen Gayer, both 50, are scheduled to appear in U.S. District Court in San Francisco today. They face not only their previous list of drug smuggling charges but also allegations of conspiring to avoid trial.

The men were arrested in March 1988 in Antioch after an undercover investigation linked the men to a drug ring that authorities say was responsible for smuggling more than 400 tons of marijuana from Southeast Asia into the United States.

The men fled while their trial was pending and after they had been released from custody pledging their mothers’ properties to ensure their appearances in court.

In what authorities say was an elaborate scheme to avoid prosecution, the two men set out on Wolosky’s 24-foot boat on a fishing trip up the California coast in 1989. They were presumed to have drowned after the boat was found partially submerged off Point Bonita.

But missing life preservers and evidence that the boat mishap was rigged kept the fugitive search alive.

U.S. marshals arrested Wolosky in New Hampshire several weeks ago. Gayer was later arrested in New Mexico.