Agent Testifies That Defendant Confessed to Role in Drug Ring

A Texas man on trial in Los Angeles in connection with the largest drug seizure in U.S. history confessed to federal drug agents that he played a major role in the smuggling ring, an agent testified Friday. Authorities say the smuggling ring distributed up to five tons of cocaine a week out of a Sylmar warehouse.

James Romero McTague, 42, of El Paso, who has pleaded not guilty in federal court to narcotics smuggling charges, told authorities shortly after his arrest that “he knew what he was doing and it was wrong,” Drug Enforcement Administration Agent James L. Capra testified.

But McTague’s attorney said during a recess in the trial that he intends to tell the jury that the DEA pressured his client into making a confession.

“It was coerced,” said Michael Pancer.

Capra’s account came during the second day of the trial of six defendants charged with participating in a drug trafficking ring that ended with the seizure a year ago of more than 21 tons of cocaine in a warehouse in the San Fernando Valley community of Sylmar.

Defense attorneys say the men, four of whom are related, had nothing to do with the record amount of cocaine that was confiscated last Sept. 28 and 29.

In his opening statement Wednesday before U.S. District Judge Terry J. Hatter Jr.,Assistant U.S. Atty. James P. Walsh Jr. said ledgers and other records seized at the warehouse and at residences would link the defendants to a cocaine organization with roots in a Colombian drug cartel. McTague supervised the cocaine distribution from the Sylmar warehouse, Walsh said.

McTague is the son-in-law of defendant Carlos Tapia-Ponce, 69, of Mexico, who along with his son and fellow defendant Hector Tapia-Anchondo, 39, are considered by government prosecutors to be among the masterminds of the smuggling ring. Prosecutors say the defendants used big-rig trucks with secret compartments to haul the cocaine from Texas to California.

DEA agents and local police burst into McTague’s suite at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in the early-morning hours of Sept. 29 after law enforcement teams had raided the Sylmar warehouse.

“I want to help you,” McTague said, according to a sworn declaration by Dean G. Caputo, an Arcadia police officer assigned to the DEA team.

As it turned out, according to the declaration, McTague “was too nervous to write,” so a DEA agent took down his 12-page statement in longhand. McTague then signed it after making corrections.

According to the statement, McTague told authorities that in December, 1987, he was asked by “some men” in El Paso “to play a major role” in a cocaine organization by being “their sole distributor in the L.A. area.”

The statement, filed in federal court, further quotes McTague as saying that “immediately thereafter, I began receiving calls from numerous Latin individuals who were expecting to receive large amounts of cocaine.”

According to the statement, McTague said: “I distributed over 60 tons of cocaine.”

Prosecutor Walsh said the Sylmar warehouse actually shipped 77 tons of cocaine in a three-month period before the September seizure.

McTague said that his three biggest customers--code-named “Memo,” “Doctor” and “Nena”--had “received up to 2,000 kilos of cocaine at one time,” according to the statement.

Cocaine shipments to the warehouse averaged 1 1/2 tons every three to four weeks, the statement said, but were accelerated to a delivery rate of five tons a week a couple of months before the seizure.