Paper Trail Outlined as Drug-Cash Trial Begins : Court: Prosecutors open the case against an alleged Colombian cartel member. His attorney denies he was involved in a money-laundering scheme.

Mapping out an intricate paper trail for the jury, prosecutors on Wednesday opened the biggest drug-money laundering case in Ventura County history and asked jurors to convict a man they say coordinated the shipment of millions of dollars from Simi Valley to Colombia.

Otoniel Urrego, 64, sat in a wheelchair and listened through earphones to an interpreter as Deputy Dist. Atty. James Grunert described the defendant as a high-ranking official in a Colombian drug cartel.

Urrego never personally visited Ventura County, Grunert said. But from his Hialeah, Fla., home, Urrego oversaw a multi-city money-laundering operation and was notified of every step as shipments left Simi Valley, Grunert said.

The prosecutor said jurors will see a series of 18 faxed memos informing Urrego how much drug money was collected from four area “wholesalers” and when that money was concealed in barrels of dry paint pigment and shipped to Dallas on the way to Colombia.

During the two months that the Simi Valley operation was in business, Grunert said, Urrego coordinated the shipment of almost $25 million.

Urrego is charged with conspiracy to transport cocaine into the state for sale and possession of more than $100,000 in drug money.

“You will come to the inescapable conclusion that the defendant was not only involved in this conspiracy, but was placed on high in this conspiracy,” Grunert told jurors at the opening of the trial, which is expected to last about three weeks.

Urrego’s attorney, Terrence A. Roden of Los Angeles, denied that his client was in any way involved in the money-laundering scheme. Although memos faxed to a business owned by Urrego will be introduced at the trial, Roden said there is no evidence that his client ever saw them.

“That’s what this trial is about--it’s about personal involvement, not theories,” Roden told the jury. “There’s no evidence he ever received money, touched money, sent faxes or had contact with anything of a criminal nature.”

Urrego’s arrest stems from the May, 1989, confiscation by police of almost $2.5 million in Simi Valley and Chatsworth that was tied immediately to Urrego’s brother, Floriberto, 51, and two sisters-in-law. Although no cocaine was found, Ventura County law-enforcement agencies kept the money as the proceeds of drug sales.

Grunert told jurors that the painstaking analysis of phone lists, memos, business ledgers and phone company records allowed investigators to break various codes and piece together the money-laundering operation.

It also led investigators to Otoniel Urrego, who, prosecutors say, at one time or another was coordinating the shipment of millions of dollars in drug money from Denver, New York and Chicago as well as Simi Valley.

Floriberto Urrego, his wife, Marta, 39, and Luz Urrego, 39, a sister-in-law to both Floriberto and Otoniel, were arrested when the money was confiscated.

But they could be kept in custody only four days without criminal charges being filed. It took almost three years of analyzing documents for law-enforcement officials to build their case. Criminal charges were not filed until March, 1992.

Floriberto and Marta are in Colombia and cannot be prosecuted unless they return to this country, officials said. But Luz Urrego pleaded guilty to possessing drug money in an arrangement with prosecutors that gives her probation with a short jail term in exchange for her testimony against Otoniel Urrego. She will be released at the conclusion of the trial, Grunert said.

Both attorneys said Luz Urrego’s testimony will be crucial to the outcome of the case. Grunert said she overheard telephone conversations informing Otoniel Urrego when the faxes describing the cash shipments would be sent.

Roden said Luz Urrego is lying when she ties Otoniel Urrego to any illegal activity.

“She is an absolutely unbelievable witness,” Roden told the jury. “She will say just about anything that she thinks will get her out of jail.”