Drug Drama Rocks Quiet O.C. Enclave

In the quiet residential neighborhood overlooking Walnut Canyon Reservoir, where children play in the streets and people watch each other come and go, drug busts are the stuff of television.

But residents of this upper-middle-class community learned that detective stories are not just make-believe, when a team of about 40 local and federal agents swooped into their neighborhood to seize $10 million worth of cocaine and arrest three suspected drug dealers.

“It sounded like a small army coming in,” said Larry Larson, who watched as about 15 cars swarmed the street, two helicopters hovered overhead, and officers in bulletproof vests surrounded and then stormed into 7091 Scenic Circle about 6 p.m. Monday.

In a closet of the sparsely furnished three-bedroom stucco house, officers found 770 pounds of cocaine, authorities said. No weapons were seized in the raid.

Three individuals who lived in the house--Ruiz Gilberto Ruis, 25, Jairo Alberto Sabogal, 32, and Sandra Julieth Santa, 22, all of whom are believed to be Colombians--were taken into custody and held overnight Monday in Anaheim.

They were transferred to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles on Tuesday, according to Joanne Wilfert, a spokeswoman for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and are scheduled for arraignment in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles this morning.

The three face felony charges of conspiracy and possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance.

FBI agents directed the raid, with help from California narcotics agents and officers attached to an interagency drug task force based in Los Angeles. Authorities declined to reveal any further information about the raid, because the investigation is continuing.

“It was just like ‘Cops,’ just like the TV show,” said Karen Ulery, who was bringing her two children to the neighborhood pool for a swim when the bust began. “The cars just came in, all at once, from all directions.”

For almost five hours before the neighborhood was invaded by narcotics agents waving handguns, two undercover agents watched the house from a deck attached to the house at 941 Ridgecrest Circle, where Larson’s 15-year-old daughter, Beth, was baby-sitting three young girls. When officers found the girls on a grassy knoll next to the house just after lunchtime, the two plainclothes officers showed their badges, told the girls about the impending raid, and then spent the rest of the day peering at the target house through tall bushes.

“It was neat to watch,” said 7-year-old Brittiny Alder, pointing out where the officers sat. “I was scared a little at first.”

Beth Larson said that the officers explained what was going to happen each step of the way, and that the girls kept playing so the scene would look normal. “They were real good with the kids,” she said, recalling that the men even held the baby, 1-year-old Caitlyn. “They were just talking to them, fooling around and stuff.”

At about 6 p.m., the officers changed into black military-style garb, donned belts with guns in holsters and police vests, telling the girls: “Now you’re going to see something like you see on ‘Cops,’ ” the baby-sitter remembered.

“They had big guns,” she said. “They moved real fast.”

Two weeks ago, neighbors said, Ruis, Sabogal and Santa rented the home, which is owned by a Chicago-area couple and valued at about $165,000.

In retrospect, one woman recalled that she never saw the threesome enter or leave the house. Another remembered that whenever cars pulled into the driveway, no one got out until the garage door closed behind them.

But until Monday’s bust, residents of Lake Summit, a development of about 200 patio homes, harbored no suspicions that their neighbors might be drug dealers.

“Nothing like this ever happens on this street,” said Tony Siragusa, 21, as he waxed a neighbor’s car Tuesday. “People lose dogs on this street; that’s the big thing. It’s not a high-intensity neighborhood.”

As girls roller-skated and boys biked up the tree-lined streets Tuesday morning, three friends chatted about the bust. “This has been a quiet little community; everybody knows everybody,” said Frances Earnhart, 37, who has lived in the neighborhood with her three children for six years. “We don’t want the big-city crime coming our way.”

But drug dealers have indeed come to the suburbs, and police have found major drug warehouses in well-to-do areas of Brea, Fullerton, Irvine and Yorba Linda in the past few years.

In June, Anaheim police announced that they had arrested 24 people and collected 8,600 pounds of cocaine over six weeks, breaking open a Colombian cartel that used houses in upscale neighborhoods to distribute cocaine that was eventually sold on streets as far away as Las Vegas and Chicago. One of the largest distribution points was a condominium on Irvine’s Chardonnay street, a neighborhood touted by residents for its security.

Two years ago, authorities seized more than 1,300 pounds of cocaine from a Yorba Linda condominium on the sleepy 6400 block of Pepper Hill Drive. That bust led to a cocaine ring that annually supplied $100 million worth of the drug to 43 states, authorities said.

Orange County’s largest single cocaine sting was in February, 1990, when police found 4,719 pounds of the drug in a warehouse in the 700 block of State College Boulevard in Fullerton near several auto shops and retail stores.

“We’ve all heard that (drug dealers) go into quiet areas,” said Margerie Fisk, 67, who has lived on Scenic Circle Drive for a decade. “I just never expected it to be next door.”

Capt. Tim Simon of the Regional Narcotics Suppression Program said “there could be all kinds of reasons” why the suspected drug dealers chose Anaheim Hills for their warehouse. “It just probably worked out to be convenient for whatever organization was moving the drugs.”

Barbara Hill, 22, who lives across the street from the drug house with her parents and older brother, shook her head as she discussed Monday’s events.

“Anaheim Hills--it’s supposed to be all perfect and everything,” she said. “You can’t escape from it anywhere.”