Task Force Seizes $3 Million in Property; 62 Are Charged : Drug Smugglers Raided in Puerto Rico

An interagency task force operating in the early morning hours Wednesday raided dozens of suspected drug dealers in Puerto Rico, seizing real estate, aircraft, cars and speedboats worth $3 million, the Justice Department announced.

Armed with search warrants, investigators said they expected to confiscate marijuana, heroin and cocaine in the largest operation of its kind on the Caribbean island.

Officials in both Washington and Puerto Rico hailed the operation as an example of the Reagan Administration’s tough stance against drug smuggling.

The department unsealed three indictments charging 62 people with a variety of drug-trafficking offenses. By late afternoon, 28 people had been arrested, with more arrests expected.

Two-Year Investigation

“This bust is in the magnitude of being a whopper,” department spokesman John Russell said.

The seizures resulted from a two-year investigation known as Operation Pedestal and involved 270 agents from the FBI, Customs Service, U.S. Marshals Service, Drug Enforcement Administration and the Internal Revenue Service, among other agencies.

“Any law enforcement agents who had guns or handcuffs were pressed into service,” Russell said.

Just after midnight Wednesday, the agents began fanning out across San Juan, striking simultaneously at 2:35 a.m., U.S. Atty. Daniel F. Lopez-Romo said in a telephone interview from San Juan. Using local police tactical teams as backup, he said, agents “were arresting people all over the island.”

Has Element of Surprise

No one was hurt, “not even a fender bender” occurred, Lopez-Romo said, attributing the success of the operation partly to the element of surprise.

“Fortunately, it was raining cats and dogs,” Lopez-Romo said. “It was perfect weather to be asleep.”

Lopez-Romo, buoyant despite two days without sleep, said that when the suspects “heard a noise, they looked out their windows and saw a SWAT team. Then they usually settled down and didn’t offer any resistance.”

He said the department is seeking to have most of the suspected smugglers held without bail until trial. Some are foreign nationals.

Counts against them total 34 and include drug trafficking charges in Puerto Rico, Colombia, the British Virgin Islands, Venezuela, Florida and St. Martin, Netherlands Antilles.

Indictments Charge Conspiracy

Two of the three indictments charged conspiracy to smuggle more than 1 ton of marijuana from Colombia between 1981 and 1983. The suspects also were charged with smuggling smaller amounts of heroin and cocaine.

The properties seized, which included 16 pieces of real estate, three aircraft, a 1986 Ferrari automobile and three speedboats, were confiscated under the 1984 Crime Control Act, which allows seizures when properties are bought with drug profits or when drug deals are made on the premises. Nine other aircraft had been seized earlier in the case.

Lopez-Romo said that while officials wait for trial, they will be “on standby, looking for the possibility of ‘spin-off’ cases, in case someone decides to flip (talk).”

Stems From Earlier Case

Operation Pedestal grew out of Operation Greenback, in which a federal task force targeted drug money laundered through Florida banks.

Pedestal got its name when Lopez-Romo and other officials in Puerto Rico were discussing drug smugglers “who had been untouched up to now and were on a pedestal,” Lopez-Romo said. “Now we’re bringing them down.”