Arrest Called Key Break in Sylmar Drug Bust Inquiry

Rafael Munoz Talavera was out of town the day U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents trooped into his palatial $3-million estate in suburban El Paso.

Only the caretaker was there when DEA staff cars pulled into the Munoz family’s circular driveway on the afternoon of Oct. 6. Munoz’s wife and three children had left behind spacious closets filled with finely tailored clothes and a few scattered pieces of jewelry. Rifling the closets, federal agents found purses and wallets containing petty cash, the sort of insignificant amounts that a rich man might absent-mindedly drop into his pockets and forget about over time.

The pocket change amounted to $3,000.

According to U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials, the reason for Munoz’s absence that day was the Sept. 29 seizure by Los Angeles-area police and drug agents of 21.4 tons of Colombian cocaine in a Sylmar warehouse--the largest cache of narcotics ever found in a single location.

As the alleged head of the Mexican smuggling operation hired by the Medellin and Cali drug cartels to ship three tons of cocaine a week into the United States, Munoz had lost a considerable portion of his inventory, according to U.S. and Mexican law enforcement authorities.

With the heat on in the days after the raid, Munoz disappeared into Ciudad Juarez, a border town of 1 million people across the Rio Grande from El Paso. His capture on Wednesday, a month after the raid, in a cramped motel room less than a mile from a border checkpoint, has proved to be the most significant development thus far in the Sylmar investigation, federal investigators said.

“Next to the Colombians, you can’t get a bigger guy than Munoz,” said Phil Jordan, the DEA’s special agent in charge of the Dallas division.

Munoz has been charged under Mexican law with cocaine trafficking, conspiracy and firearms violations. Munoz’s lawyers deny that he has commited any crime, and they contend that a “confession” he reportedly made to Mexican police after his arrest was coerced under torture.

Nonetheless, U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials say the arrest provides links to the Colombian drug cartels.

Last Friday, Mexican federal authorities said they had issued a warrant for a Colombian associate of Munoz who allegedly worked with him in Juarez, supervising the smuggling of three-ton shipments of cocaine flown in each week from the Colombian interior.

The officials would not name the Colombian, saying they did not want to jeopardize their manhunt. Jose Luis Alcalde, a prosecutor with the Ministerio Publico Federal--the Mexican Justice Department--said that although the Colombian is believed to be a member of the Medellin cartel, “in (its) pyramid of power, we can’t tell how high up he is.”

According to Alcalde, Munoz told investigators in his confession that he had planned to flee across the border with the Colombian, then on to Miami, where the pair would board a flight for Colombia.

But Munoz was alone last Wednesday when more than 50 Mexican federal police surrounded the Motel Colonial Las Fuentes. He had holed up there for three days, renting two rooms. When investigators burst into one room, Munoz gave up without a fight. A 9-millimeter German-made automatic weapon lay on his bed, and in the next room, police recovered two rifles and five handguns.

As is the custom after big arrests, satisfied investigators displayed Munoz the next day to the local media. The sullen, clean-shaven man in a leather jacket who stared sternly into the television lights was a familiar figure around Juarez.

“He was known among the elite on both sides of the border,” said one DEA official. “He was a personality.”

In a multimillion-dollar investment empire, Rafael Munoz Talavera, 37, has ranches, hotels and restaurants at his disposal. When investigators began to piece together his financial portfolio last week, they came up with a list of more than 60 properties scattered from Juarez to Cancun and Acapulco, including five sprawling ranches, a mansion in El Paso and another in Acapulco--each valued at more than $3 million. Many of the properties were used to launder drug money, narcotics investigators said.

The Florida Restaurant, one of several owned by Munoz, is among Juarez’s finest establishments, a darkened, comfortable place where waiters in white topcoats serve mariscos dishes and recite from an extensive wine list.

Business was conducted as usual at the Florida in the days after Munoz’s arrest. “The boss is in the can,” shrugged a plump-faced bartender when asked about Munoz. Said a woman who identified herself as the restaurant’s manager: “Business is up since the arrest.”

Mexican authorities said that in the weeks to come, there may be more arrests in the case. At least 300 people reportedly worked in the drug-smuggling operation.

Munoz has no criminal record in the United States but has been an object of interest by American law enforcement officials for as long as a decade, first in connection with alleged marijuana smuggling.

Often, investigators say, the marijuana--as much as 3,000 pounds a week--came across in hidden compartments in cars. Or, Jordan said, individual smugglers would simply wade across the Rio Grande, straining under 100-pound sacks. The operation graduated to tractor-trailers, the method allegedly used later to ship tons of cocaine to the warehouse in Sylmar.

By the mid-1980s, as the Colombians’ traditional cocaine-smuggling routes through Florida dried up because of intense law enforcement pressure, they looked for new avenues into the United States through Mexico. Marijuana smuggling operations provided a ready-made system. Several times a week, said a DEA agent in the Dallas office, Gulfstream Aero Commander twin-engine planes bound from airstrips deep inside Colombia landed at Munoz’s ranch in Buena Ventura, about 100 miles south of Juarez. The planes could safely hold up to 900 kilos of cocaine--nearly a ton--and sometimes were so overloaded with cocaine that they crashed, the agent said.

In his alleged confession, Munoz told Mexican police that he earned $100,000 every time one of the planes landed, Alcalde said. “Munoz was rich, but he suddenly became very rich,” the Mexican prosecutor said.

In Juarez, Mexican officials say, Munoz became so well known for the high-priced properties that he bought and sold that he gained a reputation among legitimate businessmen as a real estate baron.

In May, 1987, according to DEA agent Sam Herrera, Munoz bought a 30-acre estate in a suburb of El Paso called the Upper Valley, a lush area where custom-built homes are surrounded by cotton fields.

Munoz’s house spanned 10,000 square feet, a rambling two-story structure protected by a 6-foot-high wall and a lawn wired for security. Beside the house is a tennis court; inside, a heated pool. The house came equipped with riding stables, a barn and a garage where Munoz stored several cars, including a Lincoln Town Car, and several dirt bikes.

Neighbors said it took more than a year for contractors to build the Munoz mansion.

“The lavishness went on and on,” said Mary Young, who lives down the street. “When all the palm trees came in, people around here started calling it ‘Miami Vice.’ ”

The neighbors said the Munoz family was reclusive and did not associate with them beyond exchanging occasional pleasantries.

“I saw him come out of the house last summer and stand on the front steps surveying his beautiful estate,” recalled Caroline Stewart, who lives across the street from the mansion in a home that was itself once owned by a marijuana dealer in the area.

Investigators said they have evidence that Munoz traveled frequently in the United States and regularly to Los Angeles. It was a pattern that was unbroken until the Sylmar raid.

In the days after the seizure, Munoz took flight, Herrera said. The day before DEA agents swarmed into his house, his wife and children were seen hurriedly leaving the house in a white sports car. Agents found no trace of drugs in their search of the premises, Herrera said.

On Oct. 26, Mexican federal police raided one of Munoz’s houses in central Juarez. Police seized 250 grams of cocaine and $175,000 in Mexican currency--an amount that prosecutor Alcalde described as “petty cash for the weekends.”

Then, last week, police caught up with Munoz at the motel. Alcalde insisted the arrest was “100% ours.” DEA agents maintained that the raids began only after they supplied Mexican investigators with addresses found in records seized after the Sylmar bust.

On Friday, two days after Munoz’s capture, Alcalde told a judge during a court hearing that Munoz had confessed to the charges against him--purchase, possession, transportation and trafficking of illegal drugs, import and export of cocaine, criminal conspiracy and possession of military firearms.

During the same hearing, however, Munoz contended that his confession was tortured out of him. He told a judge that a plastic bag was held over his face while a police officer shoved him in the stomach to “knock the air out of me.” He also claimed that investigators had threatened the lives of his wife and children.

Munoz faces a hearing that will either end in his indictment or release. If convicted in a Mexican court--under a reciprocal prosecution agreement between the United States and Mexico that allows either country to charge and try criminal suspects for crimes committed across the border--Munoz faces 25 years in prison, Alcalde said.

Acknowledging that Munoz may never be extradited, U.S. authorities are nevertheless hungry for the opportunity to question him. Such an opportunity could move the Sylmar investigation along considerably, agents said.

“Sure, we’d love to sit down with him,” said the DEA’s Jordan. “There’s a lot he could answer for us.”

Stephen Braun reported from Los Angeles and Louis Sahagun reported from El Paso.