Hauler Admits Smuggling of Toxic Waste : Environment: Prosecutors will recommend that El Toro man serve 15 months in prison for dumping the hazardous materials in Mexico.

An El Toro man pleaded guilty Thursday in federal court to smuggling toxic waste from Los Angeles County to Mexico for illegal dumping, prosecutors said.

U.S. Atty. Lourdes Baird said prosecution of Raymond Franco, 58, represents the first federal indictment and conviction under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, an environmental statute that prohibits unlawful transportation and disposal of hazardous waste.

Franco faces a maximum penalty of 17 years in prison and almost $450,000 in fines after pleading guilty to one felony count of conspiracy, two counts of illegal transportation of hazardous waste and one count of illegal exportation of hazardous waste to Mexico.

Prosecutors, however, said they will recommend he receive only 15 months in jail as part of his plea agreement in the case. U.S. District Judge Terry Hatter will sentence Franco on July 22.

In October, 1988, a multiagency Environmental Crimes Task Force identified Franco, who operated Ray’s Industrial Waste, a licensed waste hauler, as a suspect in the illegal transportation and disposal of hazardous waste in Los Angeles County.

An investigation later revealed that Franco was accepting money from California businesses to take their wastes to legal landfills or recycling facilities, prosecutors said. But Franco and an accomplice, David Torres, were indicted for allegedly loading drums of the dangerous materials into enclosed trucks destined for Mexico.

Much of the hazardous waste allegedly was dumped at a Tijuana warehouse, and investigators fear that some of the barrels later may have been used by nearby residents to store water.

Federal prosecutors said Franco admitted that in July and October of 1988 he and Torres removed 2,750 gallons of hazardous paints and solvent wastes generated by Barmet Aluminum Corp. of Torrance. They then smuggled it to a Tijuana pottery warehouse owned by Torres, who remains a fugitive.

It was the second successful prosecution this week involving charges of illegal dumping of Los Angeles County toxic waste in Mexico.

In a separate state case, Horacio Sosa, 55, a Mexican national from Calexico, pleaded no contest in Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday to a felony charge of illegal transportation of hazardous waste.

Sosa’s plea came in response to charges that he smuggled 30 drums of cyanide electroplating waste to Calexico from the now-defunct All American Plating Corp. in North Hollywood.

He is scheduled to be sentenced June 1. Two co-defendants face a preliminary hearing on felony hazardous waste charges next month.

Increasingly strict environmental laws and the escalating costs of legal disposal are prodding more and more hazardous-waste generators in Southern California to send their toxic garbage illegally into Mexico, where it is dumped or used in industrial processing.

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner, whose office helped prosecute the Franco case under an agreement with the U.S. attorney’s office, warned Thursday that “these prosecutions send a message to the environmental criminal that we will uncover their activities and prosecute them--regardless of where they commit their crimes.”

“Sound environmental practices don’t stop at the boundaries of Los Angeles County or the state of California,” he said.