17 Arrests Made in Bookmaking Raids : Crime: Sheriff’s deputies simultaneously hit sites in five counties. Authorities say they have crippled--for now--a sports gambling ring netting $5 million a month.

Southern California’s largest illegal sports bookmaking operation was crippled Monday when sheriff’s deputies swept through five counties and arrested 17 people, including a man believed to be the leader of the enterprise, which netted $5 million a month, authorities said.

About 100 deputies fanned out through Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, Ventura and Orange counties and made all of the arrests at 7 a.m., according to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Authorities said they wanted to stop the ring before the next wave of illegal betting, expected to hit when the National Basketball Assn. finals begin Wednesday. One suspect was still at large at day’s end, however.

“This was the biggest bookmaking organization for sports betting in Southern California,” said Lt. David Kading of the vice detail of the sheriff’s Special Investigations Bureau. “Hopefully, we have put them out of business for a short period of time, until they bail themselves out.”

Bettors found out about the widespread operation by word of mouth, and it was so sophisticated that regular customers used special identification codes. But for those owed money from recently placed bets, authorities said, all bets are off.

Among those arrested Monday were Kale Kalustian, 65, of Granada Hills, the alleged head of the ring; and two top aides, Walter Miller, 45, also of Granada Hills, and Ron LaForgia, 65, of Thousand Oaks, authorities said.

But Kading said illegal bookmaking is so rampant that authorities hold out little hope the operation will remain dormant for long.

Kalustian and some of his alleged associates had been arrested at least once before, in 1986, on suspicion of masterminding a similar, though smaller, ring. Authorities allege that this time, Kalustian had taken over at least some of the control of a massive illegal operation from Ron Sacco, a California-based bookmaker believed to have run the largest sports betting scheme in the world until his indictment last year.

“Kalustian had been an associate of Sacco for years, and when the Sacco organization was somewhat dismantled, Kalustian flowed in and filled the void,” Kading said. “If (Kalustian) goes to prison along with his top lieutenants, someone else will flow in and fill the void. That is the nature of the game.”

All 17 people arrested were booked for investigation of conspiracy to commit bookmaking and were being held in lieu of $200,000 bail each. Arraignments had not been scheduled.

The investigation into the current ring began nine months ago, and there had been more than a dozen arrests before Monday. Kading said that the ring specialized in taking bets for professional and college basketball and football games, as well as betting at major horse racing tracks, and that clerks took the bets at a variety of locales and phone numbers in order to thwart authorities.

At least part of the operation was believed to be run by Kalustian out of his Granada Hills home, where the alleged kingpin was believed to be making the lion’s share of the profits, Kading said.

In all, authorities seized $82,408 in cash from five locations, including $34,099 from Kalustian and $29,791 from Miller. Also seized and displayed at a news conference Monday afternoon were computers, financial ledgers, cellular and regular phones and tape recorders used to record the bets and transactions.

Besides Kalustian and his alleged lieutenants, the 14 other suspects arrested Monday were clerks who were paid between $200 and $300 a week, in cash, to take bets over the phone, authorities said. They were arrested at their homes in Quartz Hill, Bellflower, Sherman Oaks, Westlake, Century City, Pico Rivera, Los Angeles, Diamond Bar, Ontario, Duarte, Whittier, San Pedro, Rancho Mirage in Riverside County and Los Alamitos in Orange County.

Authorities described the raids as a major success, given the elusive nature of sports betting operations. Such rings spread their operations over a vast region so some associates will have time to escape and destroy evidence even as others are being arrested. But in this case, using a battle plan several hundred pages long, authorities coordinated the raids in secrecy and made the arrests at the same time.

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By late afternoon, only suspected clerk Robert Tondreau was still at large, and authorities said they had seized $2,000 in cash from his San Pedro home.

Authorities conceded, however that they believed others were involved. They said they decided to concentrate on 18 key people because the Sheriff’s Department vice unit has a relatively small staff.

Some of the clerks had been arrested recently, but had gone right back to work after their release, Kading said.

Kalustian was charged along with 11 others--including LaForgia--in 1986 with running what authorities at the time said was the largest gambling ring of its kind in Southern California. That operation took in more than $30 million a year in wagers, turning a net annual profit of $4 million to $6 million, according to authorities. The results of that case were not immediately available because the records are not in the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office’s computers, a spokesman said.

Kalustian’s current operation was much larger and more sophisticated, according to Kading, similar in scope to the one allegedly run by Sacco.

Sacco was indicted last August along with 25 suspected aides after a five-year federal, state and local investigation. He was charged with running a $1-billion-a-year sports bookmaking ring. A judge in Northern California revoked Sacco’s bail recently after authorities said he had resumed bookmaking. Sacco is in federal custody awaiting trial.

After law enforcement began investigating his operation, authorities believe Sacco moved it to the Dominican Republic, where he took calls over toll-free phone lines, authorities said.

Times special correspondent Julie Fields contributed to this story.