Orange-L.A. County Raids Net Another Cocaine Bonanza

Federal and local narcotics investigators said Wednesday that they have confiscated 400 pounds of cocaine, $2 million in cash and assorted weapons, and arrested four suspects in Orange and Los Angeles counties in the second major raid of suspected drug dealers in less than a week.

Authorities said the arrests Tuesday night and Wednesday morning were not related to the arrests in Orange County last Friday of 10 suspects and the seizure of 1,784 pounds of cocaine in what was described as the largest cocaine bust in California history.

Five Locations Hit

In the latest arrests, about 40 agents of the FBI, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Orange County Sheriff’s Department and the Los Angeles and Simi Valley police departments served search warrants at five locations in Los Angeles and Orange counties.

Authorities seized cocaine with an estimated street value of $50 million at 25365 Gemini Lane, El Toro, where they also arrested Mario Alfredo Lopez Martinez, 28, FBI spokesman Fred Reagan said.

At a home in the 22500 block of Caminito Esteban in Laguna Hills, investigators confiscated more than $2 million in cash and arrested Jose Eugenio Ramirez, 44.

Arrested at a residence in the 14400 block of Marwood Avenue in Hacienda Heights were Gilberto Valencia, 28, and George Barrera, 27, who is also known as Jorge or Julian Barrera.

Martinez is a Guatemalan national and the other three suspects are Colombian nationals, Reagan said.

A fifth suspect, identified only as Fabio Pazcualli, remains at large, U.S. attorney’s spokeswoman Laura Henry said.

The four suspects in custody appeared before a federal magistrate in Los Angeles Wednesday. A criminal complaint was filed charging them with conspiracy to possess cocaine with intent to distribute and distribution of cocaine, Henry said. All four suspects were ordered held without bail pending an appearance today before a U.S. magistrate, Henry said.

Dwight McKinney, spokesman for the Los Angeles division of the DEA, said the arrests concluded two years of investigation.

$24,000 Cash Confiscated

Search warrants also were served Tuesday night on a second Hacienda Heights residence and a home in Chatsworth, Simi Valley Police Sgt. Fred James said. No arrests were made at those two locations, although police confiscated $24,000 in cash at the Chatsworth home, he said.

James described the suspects as “basically a Colombian ring.”

At the Carefree condominiums in El Toro, a densely packed neighborhood of about 140 homes off El Toro Road, few neighbors even knew anyone was living in the Gemini Lane home where 400 pounds of cocaine were seized and one man was arrested.

The condominium’s front door, made of particle board, had been torn apart at the door knob. “It’s a cocaine-infested area,” said Joe Martin, a neighbor. Authorities “are not done here . . . in south (Orange) county,” he predicted. “There will be more.”

“I’m glad they’re busting them because it (cocaine) gets to a lot of kids . . . and puts a lot of people in the hospital. Or kills them.” Two men had been living in the house for about six months, neighbors directly across the street said.

The men “moved in here about six months ago,” Ted Tyszka said. “I’ve only seen one. I know there’s two because my mother saw them.”

But neither Tyszka nor his mother, Pauline Tyszka, ever saw anyone bring in furniture. And neither recalled ever seeing a window open or a Venetian blind drawn.

“They have an empty, neat garage,” Pauline Tyszka said.

Her efforts to exchange pleasantries with the new neighbors had been ignored, she said, so she was surprised when one of the men said, “Hi, there!” last week.

“I said, ‘Nice day, isn’t it?’ but that’s all he wanted to say. He went right inside then.”

Aside from the residents’ infrequent appearances, the only comings and goings neighbors recalled Wednesday were a few visits by plumbers, who tried to fix a leaky pipe in the home’s foundation.

Boot Print on Door

At the Laguna Hills house where suspect Ramirez was arrested, there was a boot print on the front door Wednesday.

Susan Tysell, who lives across the street from the house, said a family had moved in about six months ago but “keep pretty much to themselves.” Although she was home Tuesday night, Tysell did not hear any noise or realize there had been an arrest until a reporter asked her about it Wednesday.

There wasn’t a lot of traffic in and out of the house, where Ramirez apparently lived with his wife and at least two children. Nobody suspected anything illegal was going on.

“They seemed like the happy, family type,” Tysell said.

Another neighbor, Ardith Oddous, said she went to bed before 9 p.m. and also did not know there had been an arrest. She was surprised by the news of a major coke bust.

“That is just a shock to me,” she said. “I live right here, and I guess it happened right under my nose.”

Although she did not talk to them much, “they seemed like very nice people,” Oddous said. “But I guess you read about that sort of thing all the time. And right here on a nice street like this.”

Seizures Total 5,000 Pounds

The latest drug seizures add to about 5,000 pounds of cocaine seized in the last two weeks in sweeps by federal and local narcotics agents in the Southern California-Northwestern Mexico area.

On March 26, Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies confiscated more than 400 pounds of cocaine only hours after DEA agents, in a separate raid, confiscated about 200 pounds of the drug. In Tijuana, Mexican authorities on April 1 seized about 2,455 pounds of high-grade cocaine worth an estimated $331 million, according to a DEA spokesman.

DEA officials say crackdowns in the Caribbean and a steadily growing demand for cocaine in the Los Angeles area have shifted narcotics trafficking from Southern Florida to the West Coast.

Times staff writers Barry S. Surman, Andy Rose and Ray Perez contributed to this story.