Half-Ton of Cocaine, 22 Suspects Rounded Up in Southland

More than half a ton of cocaine worth an estimated $140 million on the street has been seized by federal and local law enforcement agents, who also rounded up 22 suspected dealers and seized $300,000 in cash, it was announced Friday.

The large bust was disclosed by Glendale police, who said that information gleaned from a major drug raid last June 1 led them to a house in Sun Valley and another in Hawthorne, both raided Wednesday with the help of federal drug agents, Hawthorne police and the West Regional Burglary Team, including sheriff’s deputies and local police.

At the Hawthorne house, said Glendale Police Lt. Gerald Stolze, officers found 809 pounds of the drug. The Sun Valley home yielded $42,000 in cash.

“When you’re dealing with cocaine dealers,” Stolze said, “one thing leads to another.”

Colombia Connection

Most of the six men, six women and one teen-ager booked at Glendale City Jail with bail set at $5 million each were Colombian nationals, police said.

Nine other suspects--also mostly Colombians--were arrested Thursday by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and U.S. Customs Service task force members, who stopped a pickup truck, allegedly carrying 220 pounds of cocaine, and then raided a house in Diamond Bar, another in Whittier and the Casa Vallarta restaurant at 1609 E. Imperial Highway in Brea.

At the Whittier house, in the 15600 block of Starbuck Street, agents reported that they found $254,000 in cash.

Officers arrested the driver of the pickup, Leonard Amaya, 45, at Diamond Bar Boulevard and Golden Springs Drive in Diamond Bar. Amaya and four other men were booked at the Industry Sheriff’s Station with bail set at $1 million each. Four women were held with bail at $500,000 each.

Airplane Seized

The raids Thursday came as a result of the confiscation on Sept. 8 of a twin-engine Piper Navaho airplane at Long Beach Municipal Airport as part of a narcotics investigation, said Undersheriff Theodore Von Minden.

In each of the two roundups, officers noted, the cash was found at a location separate from the cocaine. It is a prevalent practice, law enforcement officials say, to set up “stash houses,” usually in suburban areas, to warehouse large amounts of the drug awaiting distribution to dealers.

Glendale police said their seizure was the second involving more than 800 pounds of cocaine in the last four months.

The largest cocaine bust in California history occurred last April, when Los Angeles police seized 1,784 pounds and arrested nine South Americans in Placentia.

Recently, two men were arrested by U.S. Border Patrol agents when they crossed into the United States near Jacumba in two trucks carrying 1,285 pounds of cocaine--the largest amount ever seized in San Diego County.

The Sheriff’s Department-U.S. Customs Service Narcotic Air Smuggling Task Force, responsible for the most recent raids, was formed last July. This, according to Von Minden, was their most successful operation so far.