‘Coronado Company’ Figure Arrested in New Drug Case

Another member of a former drug-smuggling ring known as the “Coronado Company” has been arrested on new drug charges, authorities said Wednesday.

John Edward Wade, 47, of Del Mar was arrested Monday in the Northern California town of Leggett, the San Diego County Integrated Narcotic Task Force announced. He is the third former “Coronado Company” member to be arrested in the task force investigations since Friday.

Wade was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to import marijuana. He was described by authorities as an “alleged partner and financier” in a plan to smuggle 10 tons of marijuana into the country by boat. Agents seized about $55,000 when Wade was taken into custody.

Among the nine other people arrested in connection with the smuggling plot was Edward R. Otero, 34, of Del Mar, another member of the “Coronado Company,” a drug-trafficking ring that so named because it had its start among classmates at Coronado High School in the early 1970s.

Otero was taken into custody Monday in Rockport, along the Northern California coast. Authorities said Otero was the leader of a group that had gone to Rockport to rendezvous with a boat off the coast.

A third Coronado Company member, Robert Kent Lahodny, 39, of San Diego, was arrested Friday in San Diego by FBI agents in connection with an alleged plot to sell 11 pounds of cocaine.