L.A. Police Arrest 3 in Record Cocaine Haul

Narcotics detectives arrested three men and confiscated nearly a ton of cocaine, valued at $325 million, Monday in what Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates said was the largest seizure of the drug in California’s history.

Acting on information from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, Los Angeles officers said they followed Jorge Humberto Restrepo, 40, a Colombian national, to a meeting with Juan Vicente Murray-Blanco, 33, a Cuban, where a sum of money and 66 pounds of cocaine were exchanged.

Arresting both men and confiscating the drugs and money, officers then returned to a house rented by Restrepo in the 17500 block of Candela Drive in Rowland Heights, where they found another 1,841 pounds of the drug.

Restrepo and Murray-Blanco were both booked on suspicion of possession of cocaine for sale, as was a third man, Jairo Santamaria Hinestroza, 26, a Colombian, who was arrested shortly afterward.

All three were turned over to the custody of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department in lieu of bail, which was set at $100,000 each.

Gates said the cocaine, which was wrapped in individual one-kilo packages, was stored in cardboard boxes that were stacked in closets at the Rowland Heights dwelling.

He displayed the confiscated cocaine during a press conference at the police Central Facilities Building, accompanied by Al Dovetko, a representative of the DEA, who said his agency had provided the initial information that led to the arrests and seizure.

Gates said his men had maintained a surveillance of Restrepo since early this month, following him every time he left a temporary residence that he maintained in a hotel near Los Angeles International Airport.

On Monday, he said, they followed him to West Covina, where he purchased a suitcase, and then to the house in Rowland Heights where he parked in a rear garage, went inside, emerged a few minutes later, and went back to the hotel where he met Murray-Blanco.

Restrepo was unloading the suitcase, now filled with cocaine, from the trunk of the car when arresting officers stepped in, he said.

“This country,” the chief said, pointing to the pile of illicit narcotics, “is sick, and this material is an indication of that sickness.”

Dovetko echoed this sentiment, calling the seizure “small potatoes” by comparison to the amounts changing hands daily on the street. “We have a sick society here,” he said.

Gates said the latest seizure brings his department’s total for the year to 3,689 pounds of cocaine, with a street value of $628 million. Last year at this time, he said, only 1,244 pounds had been seized.

Nonetheless, the amount confiscated was far from being a national record.

Last October, federal authorities found 4,620 pounds of cocaine in two trailer-containers aboard a freighter that docked at Palm Beach, Fla.