Mexico Holds Suspect in Sylmar Haul : Drug War: Reputed smuggler is picked up in Juarez. Police believe he is the owner of the record 21.4 tons of cocaine seized last month.

Federal police said today they arrested Rafael Munoz Talavera, a reputed smuggler believed to be the owner of the record 21.4 tons of cocaine seized in September in the Sylmar area of Los Angeles.

Officers said Munoz Talavera was arrested Wednesday afternoon at a Juarez motel. Under Mexican law, he must be charged with a crime within 24 hours or be released.

Within 30 minutes after federal officers arrested Munoz Talavera, three lawyers served police with an amparo, a document restraining police from taking action against their client. Family members said police were about to send Munoz Talavera to Mexico City before they were served with the document.

Munoz Talavera remained in police custody while a federal judge scheduled a hearing to determine if there is enough evidence to charge him with a crime.

Federal officials said that if Munoz Talavera is formally charged his case will be turned over to a federal judge in Juarez. He would then be transferred from police headquarters to the Center for Social Rehabilitation, the prison.

U.S. and Mexican authorities suspect Munoz Talavera of being the mastermind of a ring that smuggled at least 60 tons of Colombian cocaine into the United States through Juarez and El Paso, Tex., last year.

The 21.4 tons of cocaine seized in Sylmar was the largest seizure ever, authorities said.

Drug Enforcement Administration agents and Mexican federal officials said the cocaine may have been flown from an undisclosed location in Colombia to the Chihuahua town of San Buenaventura, where it was unloaded from planes and taken by truck to Juarez.

From Juarez, the cocaine was taken by truck in small amounts to El Paso, where it was stored in warehouses or taken to southern New Mexico for storage, officials speculated.

Assistant U.S. Atty. James Walsh said today that paper work found at the Sylmar warehouse pointed to a business called Ruidoso Arts & Crafts in Ruidoso, N.M., that “was used in some form or fashion with the shipment” of Mexican artworks found with the record drug seizure.

However, he said the business is run by “people whose relationship to the conspiratorial group is still ill-defined.”

Six men are facing trial in Los Angeles on drug trafficking charges, among them former Mexican customs official Carlos Tapia Ponce, 68, and his son, Hector Tapia Anchondo, 38. Both men had ties to El Paso and Juarez.