10-Year Search for Drug Ring Suspect Led Police to Irvine

A 41-year-old woman from Venezuela, described by a federal prosecutor as a major figure in a Colombia-based international drug-smuggling ring, is in custody in Los Angeles after eluding authorities for 10 years.

Girselda Blanco de Trujillo, who used the alias Lucercia Adarmez, was ordered held without bail in Los Angeles federal court Tuesday after she was arrested Sunday at her home in Irvine by federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents on a warrant issued in 1975.

Assistant U.S. Atty. John McEnany of New York said the ring smuggled “hundreds of kilos of cocaine and literally tons of marijuana” into the United States. Although he said no figures were available on the amount of money handled by the ring, he portrayed the arrest of De Trujillo as a “major blow” to drug trafficking.

Indicted in 1975

De Trujillo was one of 37 people named in a 1975 indictment returned by a federal grand jury in New York, charging that she and others smuggled large quantities of cocaine and marijuana into this country between 1971 and 1974.

Twelve of those indicted were arrested and subsequently convicted of various drug charges, including conspiracy to import cocaine, McEnany said. The 12 received sentences ranging from seven to 12 years in prison.

But until this week, De Trujillo had not been caught.

McEnany said De Trujillo--one of the ring’s four leaders--was in charge of procuring couriers to smuggle the drugs into the United States and arranging for false U.S. travel documents for them.

Drug Containers

Specially designed bras and girdles, hollow coat hangers, dog cages and false suitcase bottoms were among the items used to smuggle drugs from Colombia, primarily to New York, through West Germany, Canada, California, Texas and Miami, McEnany said. Marijuana concealed aboard freighters at sea was smuggled ashore in speedboats, he added.

McEnany and DEA spokesmen in Los Angeles could not explain how De Trujillo eluded federal authorities for a decade nor how agents learned of her whereabouts last Sunday.

De Trujillo, who listed Los Angeles as her current home in court documents, was arrested without incident at a home that DEA agents said she maintained in Irvine.

A hearing on the case is scheduled for March 5.