$3.1 Million Tied to Sylmar Drugs Found

U.S. and Mexican narcotics agents have seized more than $3.1 million in cash at northern Mexico houses owned by two men suspected of engineering the sale of 21.4 tons of cocaine found last month at a Sylmar warehouse, a spokesman for the Mexican attorney general’s office said Wednesday.

A portion of the money discovered at the residences of Carlos Enrique Tapia Ponce, 68, and his son, Hector Tapia Anchondo, 38, was profits from the record cocaine stash discovered in the Sept. 28 raid, said attorney general’s spokesman Rene Hernandez.

Tapia Ponce of Juarez, Mexico, and Tapia Anchondo of El Paso, Tex., were among six men indicted Tuesday in connection with the drug bust.

The money, found buried in three locations near three of the family’s houses, included $1.7 million in U.S. currency discovered Monday in a cistern near the suspects’ house in Ciudad Juarez, Hernandez said. In addition, authorities found strongboxes packed with $952,000 and $544,000 at the two other houses.

“A large part of this money is from the sale of the cocaine that was found in Los Angeles,” Hernandez said.

Tapia Ponce and Tapia Anchondo profited only from the “uncut” cocaine that came into the United States, said Hernandez, adding that only three tons of drugs found in the warehouse were judged pure.

But Hernandez said he did not know exactly how much of the money came from the sale of the cocaine found in Sylmar.

A day after the Sylmar raid, authorities arrested Tapia Anchondo in Mexico and Tapia Ponce in Las Vegas. They are being held without bail and are expected to be arraigned Monday in Los Angeles.