Agents Seize Record 475 Pounds of Cocaine at Border Checkpoint

More than 475 pounds of cocaine was seized Wednesday at the San Ysidro border crossing in what authorities called the largest drug seizure ever at any checkpoint on the California-Mexican border.

The seizure also led a group of five law enforcement agencies to arrest six other people, including a 60-year-old woman believed to be the leader of a San Diego-Tijuana cocaine ring that has channeled the drug to out-of-state customers, authorities said.

The street value of the seized cocaine was estimated at $30 million.

A U.S. Customs Service agent became suspicious because of the nervousness of a driver attempting to cross the border at about 6:20 a.m., Jerry Martin of the agency said at a press conference Thursday. He said the agent discovered 475.5 pounds of cocaine and 36.5 pounds of marijuana jammed into the trunk of the car after the driver, Manuel Galindo, 41, of Tijuana, indicated he could not open the trunk himself because of a handicap.

‘He Played the Odds’

“He played the odds, I guess,” an agent of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration said. “He thought he’d make it” across the border.

A federal task force known as Operation Alliance--using agents from the DEA, Customs, the U.S. Border Patrol, the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the San Diego Police Department--obtained search warrants for a house in San Diego and two hotel rooms in San Ysidro, said DEA special agent Ronald D’Ulisse.

“It was certainly not the first time that this organization imported cocaine into the United States,” D’Ulisse said. “In fact, we believe that at least two other ventures were successfully carried out, resulting in the importation of approximately 900 pounds of cocaine into the United States.”

Alicia Gamboa, 60, a housekeeper, and her daughter Josephina Guerrero, 45, were arrested at about 10 a.m. at their house in the 1100 block of Kostner Drive in San Diego, D’Ulisse said. Authorities said they believe Gamboa was the leader of the alleged drug ring.

Headed Out of State

Information obtained after the seizure also led to the arrest of four others at the Happy Landings Bar in San Ysidro and an unidentified hotel there, D’Ulisse said. The agents seized three vehicles and $11,700.

D’Ulisse said a preliminary investigation indicated the bulk of the cocaine was intended for distribution outside California. He would not elaborate except to say that some of it was intended for Denver. He said he could give no details of the alleged ring because the investigation is continuing.

But he did say that the impact of the seizure on the cocaine trade in the region will be “minimal to none.”

“There is so much cocaine that 475 pounds is just an acceptable business loss,” D’Ulisse said. “Within a year ago, the Mexican Judicial Police seized 5,000 pounds (of cocaine) in Mexico, so this doesn’t constitute a tremendous business loss to the ultimate source of supply in South America. There’s just a lot more where that came from.”

Martin of the Customs Service said this fiscal year has been the agency’s most productive in terms of cocaine seizures. In fiscal 1986, the most productive year until now, 293.4 pounds of cocaine was seized, compared with 895.4 pounds so far this fiscal year.

Last year the Border Patrol seized about 1,200 pounds of cocaine from a pickup that had crossed an unpatrolled area of the border near Jacumba.

Charged Thursday with the importation of controlled substances were Gamboa; Guerrero; Galindo, a U.S. citizen living in Tijuana; Antonio Galindo of Chula Vista; Elizabeth San Vicente, a U.S. citizen who lives in Tijuana; Jesus Lizarraga of San Ysidro; and Victor Leyva of Denver. Bail was set at $75,000 for Lizarraga and Leyva; the others were not granted bail.