Torrance Truck Driver Held in Cocaine Case : Crime: Khaled Alsawas, 43, was stopped in Texas, allegedly hauling 8,000 pounds of the drug. Four others are arrested and two trucking firm owners are sought.

A Torrance truck driver is in custody and the former owners of an Ontario trucking firm are on the run after federal agents and a drug-sniffing springer spaniel named Fred uncovered 8,000 pounds of cocaine in the back of a tractor-trailer truck west of Pecos, Tex.

The drug seizure culminated an eight-month undercover investigation by federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents into what DEA officials described as “one of the most significant drug trafficking organizations” in the Southwest.

Khaled Alsawas, 43, a Torrance-based independent trucker, could face a life sentence without possibility of parole after his arrest Thursday. But a family member said Alsawas, the father of two young children, is “a hard-working family man” who “never messes with drugs” and did not know what he was carrying in the back of his truck.

But DEA agents say he did.

Meanwhile, federal arrest warrants have been issued for owners of a trucking company in El Paso--Raul Orozco Sr. and his son Raul Orozco Jr.--who federal agents say previously operated a trucking company in Ontario. Law enforcement officials believe the Orozcos masterminded the planned distribution of 12,000 pounds of cocaine smuggled into the United States at El Paso from Mexico, including the 8,000 pounds allegedly found in Alsawas’ truck.

Four others were also arrested in the case, including Alberto Ochoa-Soto of Colombia, said by federal agents to be a primary connection between Colombian and Mexican drug cartels.

El Paso DEA Special Agent in Charge Travis B. Kuykendall said Alsawas drove his truck from Los Angeles to El Paso at the Orozcos’ direction to pick up a shipment of drugs coming in from Mexico and transport it to New York. The drug shipment was under surveillance by federal agents even before it was taken across the border and then put into two trucks, including Alsawas’.

The second truck, bound for Chicago with about 4,000 pounds of cocaine, was seized in that city, Kuykendall said.

Undercover DEA agents and Texas state troopers followed Alsawas’ 18-wheel truck east on Interstate 20 until they were sure they were not being observed by counter-surveillance teams who would warn other members of the drug trafficking ring if the truck was stopped, Kuykendall said. Agents finally stopped the truck about 200 miles east of El Paso, near Pecos, and requested a canine unit from the 17-officer Pecos Police Department.

Fred, a 5-year-old springer spaniel, and his handler, Officer Chuck Sutlive, arrived shortly thereafter and found a 55-gallon drum containing cocaine in the back of the truck. Additional barrels of cocaine also were found among empty barrels in the truck.

Alsawas was arrested and held in the county jail in Midland, Tex., on suspicion of possession of cocaine with the intent to distribute.

Beery said that because of the amount of drugs involved, Alsawas and the other defendants in the case could face life sentences without parole.

Alsawas “is a victim of circumstances,” said a man who answered the phone at Alsawas’ home in Torrance and identified himself as Alsawas’ brother-in-law. “I don’t believe he knew what he was hauling.”