$20 Million in Cocaine, Three Suspects Are Seized in Santa Ana

Three men are in custody at Orange County Jail with bail set at $1 million each after narcotics investigators seized 427 pounds of cocaine with an estimated street value of almost $20 million, authorities said Wednesday.

The arrests and drug seizures came Tuesday evening in Santa Ana after a two-month undercover investigation, Anaheim Police Chief Jimmie Kennedy said at a press conference.

While this latest action by the Orange County Regional Narcotics Suppression Program--a team of federal, state, county and city police agencies--brings the amount of cocaine seized in the county this year to nearly 3,000 pounds, the drug is more available and cheaper than ever, authorities said.

“It’s reached epidemic proportions,” an agent for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency said after the press conference.

“It’s very frustrating for us,” agent Ray Tripicchio said. “We’re making record drug, money and asset seizures, and we’re not making a dent.”

The DEA estimates that in 1986 less than 2,000 pounds of cocaine were seized in Orange County. Tripicchio said that a kilogram (2.2 pounds) of the drug that cost $24,000 last year, now wholesales for only $18,000. Meanwhile, the purity has improved.

Calling this arrest and seizure “not unusual” for the county, Sheriff’s Capt. Tim Simon, who heads the regional narcotics program, said law enforcement alone cannot stop the influx of the drug. “As Sheriff Brad Gates said at the press conference, we need enforcement and demand reduction together,” Simon said.

Simon said that two of the men arrested Tuesday were from Colombia, source of “99% of the cocaine in the area,” and that the third was from El Salvador.

Arrested on suspicion of possession of cocaine for sale were Alfonso Hernandez, 33, Demetrio Antonio Saravia Gonzalez, 27, and Ivan Dario Velez Cano, 23, all living in Santa Ana, Simon said.

Simon said that two months ago police were tipped that a drug operation was being run out of a Santa Ana business.

On Tuesday, investigators saw people from the business driving erratically in separate cars. “They’d do a U-turn, stop, watch the traffic go by, then make calls from pay telephones--classic behavior for drugs or money being exchanged,” Simon said.

Investigators followed Gonzalez back to the business--DAC Ironworks in the 1900 block of 4th Street--and watched him back a Toyota pickup truck up to the entrance and load something into the vehicle, Simon said.

Gonzalez then drove to a nearby market and made telephone calls. Shortly afterward, Hernandez pulled into the market. The two spoke briefly and then left together in Hernandez’s car. Five minutes later, Cano walked up to the unattended truck, hopped inside and drove away, Simon said.

Investigators arrested Cano after a chase and found 363 pounds of the drug inside the truck.

Police then drove to DAC Ironworks, where they arrested Gonzalez and Hernandez, Simon said. Police armed with a search warrant discovered an additional 64 pounds of cocaine inside the business.