5 Held in 1,500-Pound Cocaine-Smuggling Case : Drugs: Four Canadians and a Colombian are arrested after agents follow two motor homes from Anaheim to Corona and desert towns.

Five people suspected of being members of a drug ring that moved as much as $1 billion in cocaine last year through Orange County to New York and Canada were arrested this week after a tip from Canadian law officials, authorities said Friday.

Agents of the Drug Enforcement Agency reportedly seized a record 1,507 pounds of high-grade Colombian cocaine from four Canadians who allegedly posed as Disneyland tourists to enter the United States, travel to Orange County, then pick up shipments from a Colombian cartel employee at a hotel in Corona. The cocaine had an estimated street value of $65 million.

John Zienter, DEA special agent in charge, said a Quebec-based Colombian drug cartel has been using an intricate transportation corridor over the past year to move about 10 tons of cocaine from Colombia to New York and Canada.

“The ultimate success of this investigation was based on the exchange of information across borders and resulted in disrupting a new smuggling and transportation corridor,” Zienter said.

All four Canadians, as well as Colombian national Miguel Angel Cortes, were charged with possession and distribution of cocaine.

DEA spokesman Ralph B. Lochridge said the corridor began sometime around January, 1993, when Cortes, 43, then living in Costa Mesa, began receiving monthly shipments of cocaine from Colombia via Mexican couriers. Most of the shipments would be turned over to Cortes at unknown locations in Orange County, Lochridge said.

Cortes then would meet the Canadian couriers throughout Los Angeles, Orange and Riverside counties.

Relying on a tip from the Quebec Providential Police and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, authorities said they followed two of the suspected couriers from their hotel near Disneyland to a motel in Corona. There, Lochridge said, the suspects met Cortes who loaded their motor homes with cocaine. The vehicle then was followed by authorities to Baker, where agents seized 825 pounds of cocaine in cardboard boxes and arrested Alain Famelart, 35, of St. Hubert, Quebec, and Marie Paulette Viau, 33, of Lemoyme, Quebec.

The remaining 682 pounds were allegedly seized the next day from the second motor home that had traveled from a hotel in Anaheim to meet Cortes at the Corona motel and then proceeded to Ludlow. Pierre Mailloux, 50, of St. Denis Sur Richelieu, Quebec, and Jean Joseph Emery, 41, of Montreal were then arrested in Ludlow.

Lochridge said that although the four may have made “numerous” pickup trips throughout the year, other couriers were also used.

“When they were stopped, the agents asked them what their favorite ride at Disneyland was,” said Lochridge. “They all broke out in a cold sweat and said they just passed by the park.”

Also in connection with the case, Canadian authorities conducted 21 raids in Montreal and made 12 arrests, charging suspects with conspiracy to import cocaine.

“These types of cooperative efforts are essential in these international cases,” said DEA agent Zienter.

If convicted of the charges, all five arrested by the DEA face mandatory 10-year prison terms.