$226-Million Cocaine Cache Netted in Second-Biggest Haul of the Year

Narcotics investigators Thursday arrested two men in a North Hollywood parking lot and confiscated 1,333 pounds of cocaine in what officials said was the second-largest seizure of the drug in the state this year.

Los Angeles police and federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents posing as drug dealers capped a four-month investigation with the arrests of Leopoldo Piloto, 48, and Carlos Garcia, 25.

The suspects were arrested in the parking lot of a Sears store at Laurel Canyon and Victory boulevards. Cocaine with a street value estimated at $226 million was found in the suspects’ car and at Piloto’s home in the 11600 block of Stagg Street.

Piloto, described by police as a Cuban native, and Garcia, a Colombian national, were booked on suspicion of possession of cocaine for sale. Bail was set at $5 million each.

Police Chief Daryl F. Gates said the seizure was second in size only to one made last April in Orange County, where LAPD narcotics officers and DEA agents garnered 1,784 pounds of cocaine with a value estimated at the time at nearly $500 million. Eleven suspects were arrested in that seizure.

Officers on Thursday also seized $70,000 in cash, a small machine gun and a pistol.

Gates said the seizure brought to 13,000 pounds the amount of cocaine taken in the Los Angeles area so far this year. Only Miami, where 14,000 pounds of coke has been seized, has a higher total for the year, he added.

Police declined to release further details of the arrests, saying their investigation is continuing.

In another, unrelated action, DEA agents struck in Ontario and Hawthorne, wrapping up a yearlong investigation into what they said appeared to be a nationwide distributor of methamphetamines, commonly known as speed.

The agents shut down the Brewster Chemical Co., 916 W. Brooks St., Ontario, and raided the Hawthorne home of the firm’s owner, Anthony Brewster, DEA spokesman Dwight McKinney said.

He said the agents confiscated $100,000 in cash and bank records before moving on to a mini-storage facility in Hawthorne where they found drug lab apparatus and ingredients used to manufacture the drug.

No arrests were made pending grand jury indictments, McKinney said.