Trafficking Moves West : Raid Nets 411 Pounds of Cocaine

Following a trail of drugs and cash, sheriff’s investigators have seized 411.4 pounds of cocaine worth $112 million and arrested four suspects in what they called one of the largest such cocaine raids to date in Los Angeles County.

The Wednesday seizure followed on the heels of another raid earlier that morning by officers of the Los Angeles Police Department and federal Drug Enforcement Administration, who confiscated another 200 pounds of cocaine worth $56.7 million, and a third raid last week that netted 180 pounds. The three cases apparently are not related.

The gigantic seizures are indicative of a drug smuggling problem that has escalated across California in recent months, Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block said Thursday.

“It’s staggering. There’s so much of it around that these large raids aren’t unusual anymore,” Block said. “We are losing the war in spite of stepped-up enforcement.”

Operations Shifted Westward

Much of the increase in drug trafficking locally is due to a highly publicized crackdown on cocaine smuggling in Florida and the Caribbean that has caused many dealers to shift operations westward, according to federal drug officials.

In 1984, Drug Enforcement Administration agents in California were seizing an average of 22 kilograms of cocaine per month. That figure jumped to 125 kilograms per month in 1985.

DEA agents working with local authorities have seized 700 kilograms of cocaine in the agency’s Los Angeles division, which encompasses seven counties, for the first six months of the fiscal year that began in September, 1985. The figure compares with 873 kilograms confiscated in all of 1984-85, officials said.

Block said the sheriff’s raid was the largest in terms of cocaine confiscated to date by his agency, noting that another raid conducted late last year netted more money--$900,000 in U.S. currency--and 250 pounds of cocaine.

Arrested by sheriff’s investigators were: Hector F. Vargas, 28, of Sylmar, and Elias C. Warriors, 34, of Northridge, both Colombian nationals, and Jaime O. Andrade, 39, and his wife Maria R. Andrade, both Ecuadorean nationals who live in Whittier. The suspects were booked on conspiracy to sell cocaine and are being held in County Jail facilities in lieu of $5 million bail each. Block would not divulge details of what led to the four-day investigation except to say that undercover narcotics investigators were involved and that “small purchases lead to large seizures.”

Searched Sylmar Home

Sheriff’s investigators first searched the Sylmar home of Vargas, where they confiscated $58,000 in cash. Information obtained there led to a search of the Alaska Food Co. in Montebello, which is owned by the Andrades and Warriors. Investigators then found $460,000 behind a hot water heater vent at a house in Cerritos, and 186 kilograms in an Alaska Food Co. truck parked at the Whittier home of the Andrades.

The money will be turned over to the DEA, which must file a civil lawsuit in U.S. District Court to keep the confiscated cash. The county would share in the proceeds.

In the Wednesday raid by Los Angeles Police Department and DEA officers, three Cuban immigrants were arrested at a West Washington Boulevard warehouse, after a three-month investigation, police said. Booked at Parker Center for conspiracy to sell a controlled substance were Simon Lazaro, 34; Alex Beoto, 26, and Jose Herrera, 30, all of Los Angeles. Demand for cocaine has always been high in California, drug officials said, and the increasingly large seizures are due in part to a “route change” by smugglers, a DEA spokesman said.

The traditional cocaine smuggling route has been from Colombia to Florida, where the drug was then shipped to other markets, Los Angeles being one of the largest, DEA officials said. But with enforcement efforts stepped up in the Southeast, smugglers are routing more of the cocaine through Mexico and Southern California.

Although the greatest amount of the drug is brought in by private planes, which land in remote areas of Southern California, much of it is being confiscated at the Mexican border at San Ysidro. U.S. Customs agents at that border crossing seized more cocaine in October and November than they have in the preceding 12 months.

In the 1984-85 fiscal year, which ended in September, federal and local law enforcement agencies seized 873 kilograms (1,920.6 pounds) of cocaine in Southern California. Of that, 562 kilograms were in Los Angeles County, 212 in Riverside County and 90 in Orange County, the DEA said. In the preceding 12 months, the Southern California total was only 239 kilograms.

On the streets of Los Angeles, the retail price of cocaine is from $90 to $100 a gram. The wholesale price is between $35,000 and $40,000 a kilogram, drug agents said. Estimates of the street value of the drug, after it has been “cut” by the addition of other material and resold, vary from $110,000 to $625,000 per kilogram, drug enforcement officials said.

The only answer to the mounting problem, Block said, is a need for a national drug policy. “No matter how aggressive we are, it’s after the fact--the drug is already here.” Such a national policy would include more pressure on countries producing the cocaine and more public drug abuse education, he said.

Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp recently criticized federal authorities for failing to address the national drug abuse problem. He noted that funding for drug education programs dropped from $14 million in 1981 to $2.9 million in 1984.