CRIME : Car’s Heavy Load Yields Weighty Cocaine Bust

The car’s suspension gave it away.

Alert narcotics detectives who noticed a car that seemed too weighted down for its four-passenger load led police to the seizure of more than 800 pounds of cocaine with an estimated street value of $7.8 million.

The Santa Ana detectives, who were working on another case in East Los Angeles last Thursday morning, followed the car to a house at 789 1/2 West Center St. in Pomona, said Santa Ana Police Lt. Robert Helton.

The car pulled into the garage about 1 p.m. and emerged at 5:15 p.m., “riding high as if empty,” Helton said.

The detectives stopped the car and found about 68 pounds of cocaine hidden in secret compartments.

Helton said the detectives alerted Pomona police, obtained a search warrant and raided the house. They found an additional 755 pounds of cocaine stashed in the garage.

Four men were arrested, all residents of Mexicali, Mexico, a border town in northern Baja California. Juan Baducuki Fernandez, 29, Guadelupe Higuera Haro, 32, Joselino Ojeda Camacho, 35, and Gustavo Angulo Camacho, 29, were all booked into Pomona jail on a variety of drug charges. Each was held on $5-million bail, Pomona police said.