Oxnard : Cocaine Seized at Hotel; 6 Arrested

The Drug Enforcement Administration confiscated 10 kilograms of cocaine and arrested six men at Oxnard’s Financial Plaza Hilton on Friday, interrupting a lunch crowd in the dining room when three of the men overturned tables and broke dishes in an attempt to flee, authorities said.

Agust Aguino, 29; Jose Zazueta, 35; Taurino Ojeda, 26; Miguel Colmenero, 29, and Hugo Landaverde, all of Riverside, were being held on suspicion of possession and distribution of cocaine, said Bill E. Modesitt, the agent who heads the DEA’s Santa Barbara office. A sixth man, whose identity was not known, was also being held.

The men are expected to be arraigned in federal court in Los Angeles on Monday, Modesitt said.

Zazueta was carrying a 9-millimeter pistol when arrested, he said.

The men allegedly had agreed to sell the cocaine to an undercover drug agent for $24,000 a kilogram, he said. Armed with a state-issued search warrant, agents removed 10 one-kilogram bricks from a Ford Mustang in the hotel’s parking lot about 7 p.m.

Undercover agents were first shown the cocaine in Ventura about 11 a.m. and went to the Oxnard hotel about noon to purchase it. With assistance from the Ventura and Oxnard police departments, they arrested three of the men in the parking lot and then entered the dining room to arrest the other three. In their attempt to flee the dining room, the men broke about $25 worth of dishware, but the hotel billed the DEA $253 for all its patrons’ meals, Modesitt said.

“The hotel was a little perturbed,” Modesitt said. Hotel management would not comment Friday night.