Site of Record Drug Seizure Lures Looters

Scores of looters and souvenir-hunters Saturday swarmed into the Sylmar warehouse that was the scene of the world’s largest cocaine bust, as federal and local agents fanned out across the county in a fast-paced search for additional drug smugglers.

Seven suspects--including an alleged ringleader who fled to Las Vegas--had been arrested by Saturday night in the milestone drug case.

The looters descended on the warehouse shortly after authorities finished hauling away 20 tons of cocaine early Saturday. Officials of the Drug Enforcement Administration said they secured the warehouse as they left, but somehow the curious managed to gain access--possibly through an overhead rolling door--and spent hours poring over the velvet paintings of Jesus and Mexican ceramics that had served as a cover for the alleged drug-running business.

“Maybe someday this will be worth some money,” James Stanley, 23, of Phoenix said as he loaded up his mother’s Cadillac with paintings and plaster animal statues.

Remembering the Event

“It’s something to keep at home and remember from the big one,” a man who would only identify himself as Fred said as people around him crawled on top of stacks of boxes, ripped them open and tossed paintings and statues down to friends and relatives.

Witnesses said the looting began at about 4:30 a.m. and reached a peak about three hours later. Only when a DEA agent arrived at 1 p.m. and called the police did the crowd of 50 or more begin to abate.

The plunderers also were taking plastic bags marked “Drug Enforcement Administration Evidence” and investigators’ used and discarded plastic gloves, but a DEA spokesman said nothing of “evidentiary value” had remained behind at the scene.

Nevertheless, the agent who arrived at the warehouse Saturday afternoon gathered up whatever evidence bags were still scattered about and took them away. Two Los Angeles police officers padlocked the overhead door that may have been left open.

The looting was a curious result of Friday’s announcement that federal and local law enforcement agents, acting on a businessman’s tip, had raided the warehouse and made the largest seizure of cocaine ever: 20 tons worth up to $6 billion. Some estimates put the value even higher.

Chasing Leads

Authorities said Saturday they were working against the clock to chase leads and investigate clues from documents and records recovered at the warehouse. As word of the bust spreads through the cocaine underworld, authorities said, traffickers will be sent into hiding or will be moving swiftly to cover their trails.

“I’m sure a lot of people are changing addresses and beepers, or being rotated to Miami,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Curt Hazell said of the drug underworld.

Hazell, who drew up the search warrants for the bust, said that although the documents, which include mobile phone records, will be difficult to decode, the information will nevertheless give investigators a rare opportunity to look more deeply into the cocaine network.

“We have never peeled the onion back to what is behind the stash house,” Hazell said. “This is the farthest back we have gone.”

Huntington Park police Detective D.J. Fitzgerald said a total of seven suspects had been arrested by Saturday night--apparently everybody involved in the immediate warehouse operation.

Four people were arrested in Los Angeles--including two at luxury hotels where they had sought cover--and three were taken into custody in their rooms at the Las Vegas Hilton on Flamingo Road.

Three Identified

DEA spokesman Ralph Lochridge identified the three in Las Vegas as Carlos Tapia Ponce, 68; Hector Eduardo Tapia Ponce, 34, and Hector Tapia. Carlos Tapia Ponce worked as a customs inspector for the Mexican government in Ciudad Juarez for 15 years, Lochridge said.

Other DEA sources said Tapia Ponce may be a key figure in the smuggling ring.

“He appeared to be directing the operation,” Hazell of the D.A.’s office said. “He is the person who rented the warehouse. He paid the bills.”

Investigators were having a tough time identifying the other suspects. All are Spanish-speaking men who say they are from Mexico but otherwise keep giving fake information, police said.

“Every time we talk to them, they give a new name and a new date of birth,” Fitzgerald said. “None had a good I.D., nothing to connect them to a house or a particular area of the country. It effectively eliminates trying to find additional houses or addresses.”

There is good news for the five cities--Huntington Park, Maywood, Bell, South Gate and Arcadia--whose police departments played a major role in the bust. Under federal guidelines, agencies receive a share of cash seizures made in drug investigations, based on the amount of help they provided. Hazell said the departments involved “stand to get a real good chunk of the money.”

The mammoth proportions of the drug bust prompted Los Angeles officials to renew pleas for additional money and manpower from Washington to fight cocaine trafficking. But the Bush Administration on Saturday appeared reluctant to make a stronger commitment to Los Angeles, saying there are no “immediate” plans to step up enforcement in the Los Angeles area.

Systematic Approach

“We knew before this bust that Los Angeles was an area where a lot of narcotics traffic is concentrated,” said Don Hamilton, spokesman for U.S. drug policy coordinator William Bennett. “We want to do what we can, but we believe we need to approach the question of high-intensity drug traffic areas seriously, soberly, systematically.”

Also on Saturday, additional details emerged on how the world’s largest drug bust unfolded.

A tipster, whose identity has been kept secret as a precaution, had set the investigation in motion with a call to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms after he became suspicious of activities at the warehouse in Sylmar, which used the name Adriana’s.

Authorities said the caller originally attempted to call the DEA but the line was busy.

The information from the caller was passed by the ATF to DEA Agent James Capra, who then gave it to members of an 18-month-old task force of agents and local narcotics detectives from five cities who specialize in drug investigations involving truck transport.

By Wednesday afternoon, about 12 detectives and DEA agents were spread out in and around the warehouse complex in the 12800 block of Bradley Avenue. Task force members were sure almost from the start that they had found a drug dealership.

No Gold Chains

“They knew these guys were dope dealers just by the way they were acting, even though they were innocuous to the other people (in the complex),” said Hazell. “There were no Ferraris, no gold chains. They weren’t flashy.”

The openness of the operation allowed investigators to see inside the warehouse from their hidden positions nearby.

“It was apparent that they were so confident that the warehouse was not going to be discovered that they left doors open, windows, even the garage door,” said Fitzgerald, of the Huntington Park police.

On Thursday morning, investigators decided to follow a car that had made a pickup at the warehouse.

They trailed the car to Baldwin Park, where the driver switched with an accomplice who had been waiting for him. The new driver of the car apparently became suspicious of being followed and parked at a fast-food restaurant, got out, walked away, then loitered in the area for about an hour, watching the car.

“He walked in and out of several businesses, several restaurants, made several calls,” apparently to alert other members of the alleged drug network, Fitzgerald said.

At about 5 p.m. Thursday the investigators moved in and arrested the man. Inside the car trunk, authorities found 20 kilos of cocaine.

In the meantime, the second half of the surveillance team followed another car from the warehouse to an apartment complex next to the Sherman Oaks Galleria. Task force members raided the penthouse, arresting one man and seizing records with names of alleged drug runners and a key to the padlock on the warehouse door.

At 9:50 p.m. the team went to the warehouse, found it unguarded, unlocked the padlock and history was made. Arrests of suspects, who began fleeing to luxury hotels, followed Friday.

The task force members had worked nearly 48 straight hours on the case but most of the investigators, awed by the size of the seizure they had made, returned to the warehouse Friday as reporters descended.

“You don’t sleep until you’re done,” Fitzgerald said.

The cocaine was removed Friday night--just hours before the looters swept in--and taken to a secret location. The packets will be photographed, fingerprinted, weighed and tested, and most of it will eventually be destroyed. Usually, authorities say they torch the stuff in special incinerators in unpopulated areas, using a process that purifies the byproducts of the burning cocaine.

Only a small portion will be kept for evidence, officials said, because of the risks and difficulties involved in storing such a massive amount.

“The security they’d have to have to keep this stuff around is tighter than for pure gold,” Los Angeles Police Cmdr. William Booth said, “somewhere between pure gold and nerve gas.”

Times staff writers Tracy Wilkinson and Tracey Kaplan contributed to this story from Los Angeles. Douglas Jehl reported from Washington.