Former Honduras Diplomat, 2 Others Held in Drug Bust

A former consul general in Los Angeles for Honduras and two others from that Central American nation are being held without bail after the trio tried to smuggle $19 million worth of cocaine in a locked suitcase into Los Angeles International Airport, federal authorities said Thursday.

Two of the men, Oscar Judas Oqueli-Hernandez, 39, Honduras’ consul general in Los Angeles in 1983 and 1984, and Robert Kattan, 40, a former Honduran consul general in Rio de Janiero, initially tried to claim diplomatic immunity and produced valid Honduran diplomatic passports, said Johnnie Granados, a spokesman for the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.

“But they are former diplomats and can’t claim diplomatic immunity,” Granados added.

In fact, said Carlos Callejas, Honduras’ current consul general in Los Angeles, Oqueli-Hernandez had been asked several times to surrender his diplomatic passport after he left the consulate post in April of 1984. “But he always had an excuse,” Callejas said.

Jim Piatt, assistant district director for the U.S. Customs Service in Los Angeles, said 26 pounds of cocaine were discovered in a locked suitcase carried by a Honduran physician living in Glendale, Gustavo Alvarado, 34. He arrived here last Monday morning abroad Varig Brazilian Airlines Flight 830 from Rio de Janiero and Lima, Peru.

Customs Agent Margie Gutierrez, a member of an inspection team that processes overseas flights into Los Angeles International Airport, said something seemed amiss because Alvarado’s hands were trembling. Suspecting that he might be concealing something, she asked him to go to a secondary inspection station.

There, Alvarado at first said the locked suitcase was his, according to Piatt. But Alvarado later changed his story, claiming that the suitcase was not his and that he did not have a key to unlock it, Piatt said.

Oqueli-Hernandez and Kattan were also on the Varig flight but they cleared customs and left the airport without incident, officials said.

Questioned by authorities later on Monday, Alvarado admitted that he had agreed to bring the cocaine into the United States for Oqueli-Hernandez for $5,000, according to a federal affidavit filed in support of the complaint against the three men.

With DEA agents watching him, Alvarado agreed to telephone Oqueli-Hernandez and ask him to come back to the airport to claim the suitcase, the affidavit said.

When Oqueli-Hernandez appeared to pick up the suitcase on Monday evening, the former Honduran consul general was taken into custody by DEA agents, the affidavit said. Kattan, waiting in a nearby taxi, also was taken into custody.

The seven-member staff at the Honduran consulate on South Spring Street was shocked at the news of Oqueli-Hernandez’s arrest. Oqueli-Hernandez, who became Honduran consul general here in April, 1983, was described as a pleasant man who had a thriving dental practice in Honduras.

Left His Post

Consul General Callejas said Oqueli-Hernandez apparently had no diplomatic aspirations and left the diplomatic post in Los Angeles a year later.

“The Honduran government, naturally, is embarrassed about this and there is absolutely no connection with the government and this,” Callejas said.

Granados said the cocaine seizure was one of the largest found in a passenger’s luggage at the airport.

Federal authorities delayed release of news of the arrests because of the continuing investigation into the case. They added that a fourth person is being sought.

The three were arraigned on drug smuggling charges Tuesday before U.S. Magistrate James Penne.