Heroin Seizure From Ship Sets Record

Federal authorities have seized about 140 pounds of almost pure “China White” heroin from a container ship in Long Beach Harbor--the largest amount confiscated in the Los Angeles area, officials said Thursday.

The heroin, conservatively valued at $100 million on the street, was seized Dec. 21. The seizure revealed “the emergence” of Vietnamese as “major players” in heroin trafficking in Los Angeles and Orange counties, said Ralph Lochridge, a spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration.

“The Chinese in Taiwan and Hong Kong--but not mainland China--control distribution and wholesaling of heroin, and now they’ve forged an alliance with the Vietnamese in Southern California,” he said.

More than half of all heroin sold in the United States is smuggled through West Coast ports, according to DEA figures.

Moreover, heroin smuggling into the United States has been increasing at a dramatic pace, according to the DEA. About 1,745 pounds were seized in 1988, the year for which the latest figures are available--more than double the amount confiscated in 1987.

The acting agent in charge of the DEA’s Los Angeles office, Vincent Furtado, and Quintin Villanueva, Pacific regional commissioner of the U.S. Customs Service, announced at a joint news conference Thursday that the heroin seized in December was uncovered by Customs inspectors on the 744-foot container ship Sealand Trader, a U.S. flag carrier owned by Sealand Service Inc.

Sealand, a Menlo Park, N.J.,-based shipping firm that has a port facility in Long Beach, cooperated in the investigation and was not involved in the heroin smuggling, officials said.

DEA and Customs investigators said the heroin was discovered during a “targeted inspection” of about 1,000 cases of litchi nuts, a fruit widely grown in southern China. The search turned up eight cases holding the 140 pounds of heroin, officials said.

Arrested in Los Angeles were Hien Hoac, 40, of Alhambra and Chau Au, 33, both Vietnamese refugees, officials said.

Also arrested in Hong Kong by local narcotics officials, who were assisted by DEA agents, was the alleged shipper of the heroin, Choy Chan, 50, authorities said.

The two men arrested in Los Angeles were charged with conspiracy to possess and distribute heroin and are being held without bail at the federal Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles. If convicted, they face a maximum sentence of 10 years to life in prison.

DEA sources said they believe they shattered a sophisticated international heroin smuggling operation.

They said the smuggling network reached into China, where it purchased shipping containers, each holding 24 cans of litchi nuts. The containers were then shipped to Hong Kong, where the cans’ bottoms were cut off and the litchis replaced with chunks of heroin. The cans were then resoldered and relabeled.

The DEA participated in raiding a dozen locations in Hong Kong, federal sources said, including a major heroin packaging operation in an industrial center there.

Aiding the DEA and Customs in the investigation were the Monterey Park Police Department, the sheriff’s departments in Los Angeles and Orange counties, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

A DEA source said the heroin seizure “crippled this particular network. They had the ability to ship a tremendous load of heroin to the United States. We suspect they were in business for some time.”