Pair’s Lavish Life Undone by Drug Case : Crime: Accused ring leaders raised no suspicion in upscale Orange County neighborhood. The young couple deny charges.

The pretentious display of wealth by Carlos and Adrianna Gonzales attracted much attention but little concern from neighbors in the upscale neighborhood in the 20000 block of Via Burgos.

The couple’s decision to remodel their new home, which had never been lived in before, was seen as peculiar by some but hardly worth more than a quick lift of an eyebrow. After all, one did not move into this community of $500,000 homes, located down the road from the Richard Nixon Library & Birthplace, unless one could afford the real estate.

Nevertheless, there were constant reminders that Carlos, 29, and Adrianna, 25, had too much disposable income for a young married couple. Adrianna’s hazy explanation that Carlos owned a successful business in Mexico only added to the mystery about their wealth. She never said exactly what kind of business it was, said a neighbor.

On Oct. 23, the couple’s secret lives were unveiled when Drug Enforcement Administration agents smashed the handsome hardwood doors and arrested the Gonzaleses. Agents found Carlos Gonzales in a bathroom of the lavish home, trying to flush his cellular phone down the toilet to destroy its phone-call memory.

They were charged with heading a major cocaine distribution and money-laundering ring that authorities said shipped the drug to dealers in New York, Cincinnati, Chicago, Houston and other cities, and had direct access to the Cali cartel in Colombia.

They pleaded not guilty at their arraignment.

Officials are not sure how long the ring existed but said they were not surprised that the couple chose to operate out of an affluent Orange County community where wealth, expensive homes and flashy cars seldom attract the suspicion of neighbors and law enforcement.

Rising to the leadership of an international cocaine ring, as officials charge, was a major step for Carlos Gonzales. Law enforcement sources allege that he began his career as a small-time immigrant smuggler and marijuana transporter. In 1989, he was arrested by California Highway Patrol officers, who recovered 100 pounds of marijuana in Gonzales’ car after a 100-mph chase. He was sentenced to a year in San Diego County Jail and was deported after serving his sentence, law enforcement officials said.

Officials said in interviews and court records that Carlos Gonzales ran a violent organization and ordered a close associate who fell out of grace killed. The group counted some unlikely characters within its ranks, including an active duty Marine who was on the staff of a Marine general.

“We were shocked. We knew there was something strange about them, but we never really figured them for drug dealers,” said a neighbor who, like everybody else living on the street, requested anonymity. “The day before they were arrested, Adrianna walked through the neighborhood getting the names of all the children. She said she was putting together a special Halloween treat for each of them. Gosh, I hope the DEA doesn’t think that the kids’ names is a list of Adrianna’s and Carlos’ drug customers.”

Residents of the hilltop cul-de-sac gaped in disbelief as the couple were hauled from their well-appointed home in handcuffs. Later, they were equally surprised to learn that Carlos and Adrianna were not really married and together used at least eight aliases. Her real name is Martha Adrianna Ibarra and his is Carlos Ruben Hinojosa Gonzales.

Gonzales, Ibarra and eight others were named in an 18-page indictment filed in U.S. District Court in November, charging them with conspiracy to possess and distribute cocaine. All are being held without bail, except for one defendant who remains a fugitive and another who was released on bail.

Almost everyone on the street knew that Adrianna, who looked younger than her age, was the sole owner of the house. The property was unencumbered of liens and transferred to her without compensation by a San Diego attorney. Neighbors interviewed for this story agree that it was unusual for someone so young to own such an expensive home, but before the arrests, nobody’s suspicions were raised, not even those of the three police officers and the retired deputy sheriff who live on the street.

Neighbors and contractors said that Gonzales and Ibarra played the role of a wealthy Orange County couple convincingly.

Shortly after moving into the 3,800-square-foot house, she had the kitchen gutted and new cabinets and granite counter tops installed. The new carpeting downstairs was ripped out and replaced with hardwood floors. The foyer was tiled with Italian marble. Contractors said in interviews that they were paid with cash or cashier’s checks, sometimes drawn on Mexican banks.

Gonzales drove a black 1994 Mercedes, while Ibarra cruised around in a gray 1995 Mercedes. In addition, he liked to play in a $60,000 ski boat and 400-horsepower 1996 Porsche that sold for $100,000. A total of 10 cars and a boat were seized by DEA agents.

Mike McInerney, general manager of Eliminator Boats, said Gonzales bought a new 28-foot ski boat with cash last year. The boat was delivered to him at Lake Havasu, McInerney said.

“I told him that because he paid cash I was going to have to report the transaction to the Internal Revenue Service. He said it didn’t matter to him because he was a Mexican citizen,” McInerney said. “The story he gave me was that he came from old money in Mexico City and his dad built hotels.”

Federal officials also confiscated $3.9 million in cash from one of six properties owned by Gonzales and Ibarra. The properties, located in Orange, Los Angeles and San Diego counties, also were seized, court records showed.

Inside the Yorba Linda house, investigators seized $270,000 in Cartier jewelry and diamond rings valued at $30,000 found inside Ibarra’s purse, sources said.

One neighbor described Ibarra as a doting mother who pampered her two infant children but rarely interacted with others on the street. “That’s why we were shocked when she walked around getting the kids’ names,” the man said. But Gonzales “wouldn’t as much as exchange glances with you. He was terribly unfriendly,” he added.

Law enforcement officials said that Gonzales used violence and intimidation to run the ring. He allegedly had a ring member shot a dozen times, and investigators monitored telephone conversations in which he allegedly threatened to kill and rape others who challenged his authority, sources said in interviews.

According to an affidavit filed by DEA case agent Dianna J. Eldridge, a ring member arrested in San Diego County on other charges told investigators that the group shipped up to 14 tons of cocaine between 1993 and 1994 from Southern California to other U.S. cities. The 34-page court document included tantalizing tidbits from monitored conversations that Gonzales allegedly conducted on his cellular telephone with members of the Cali cartel directly from his Yorba Linda home.

In one monitored conversation on Oct. 20, Gonzales allegedly called Cali and complained to a man he called “compadre” that the cartel’s representative in Southern California had failed to deliver the cocaine promised by cartel leaders and refused to return his calls, court records show.

Court records show that investigators routinely monitored Gonzales’ cellular phone conversations in the final weeks of the probe. On the day that agents broke through the front door, Gonzales was found in the bathroom, desperately trying to flush his cellular phone down the toilet to destroy the phone’s memory and record of calls made. However, an agent managed to pluck it out of the bowl.

“Unfortunately, we’re finding that Orange County appeals to dope dealers. You have a lot of new, expensive communities where a doper can move in with a lot of drug money and not attract attention. You can’t do that in Los Angeles. It used to be that when you thought of Orange County you thought of boiler room scams and crooked politicians, but not any more,” said a veteran drug agent.

U.S. Atty. Nora Manella, whose office is prosecuting the drug ring, said that a community such as Yorba Linda is the perfect place for rich drug traffickers to hide. She noted that Gonzales and Ibarra did not deal drugs out of their home but used it as a headquarters instead.

“Once you’ve made a lot of money, where would you want to live but in an upscale, affluent community? There was nothing unusual about where they [Gonzales and Ibarra] chose to live,” Manella said.

Sources familiar with the case said the investigation began as a routine drug probe in New York in August, 1994, when federal agents arrested a suspect with 40 kilos of cocaine. The woman, who turned out to be one of Gonzales’ and Ibarra’s distributors, quickly agreed to cooperate with authorities, according to court documents.

Eldridge, the DEA case agent, flew to New York last December to interview the distributor, who said that Gonzales used couriers to transport cocaine in luggage via commercial flights. She also gave Gonzales’ cellular telephone number to Eldridge, according to court records.

Some of the couriers frequently flew out of John Wayne Airport. On Oct. 22, a day before the arrests, one of Gonzales’ alleged couriers was arrested at the airport carrying 30 pounds of cocaine in a suitcase, court documents said.

One law enforcement official said the investigation was routine, “not unlike hundreds that we do every year.” But that perception quickly changed after agents got to know the ring members.

Gonzales, who was born in Mexico, “is pretty much your typical cocaine trafficker with a zest for a flashy lifestyle and fast cars,” said a law enforcement source.

Ibarra was born in Torrance, her father a mechanic with the California Department of Corrections. The father had no role in the alleged conspiracy.

Another member of the group, Yiluarde “Jerry” Pacheco, named in the indictment as a co-conspirator, is an active duty Marine corporal who was on the staff of Maj. Gen. Frank Libutti, commanding general of the 1st Marine Division at Camp Pendleton, a Marine spokesman said.

According to Eldridge’s affidavit, Pacheco was responsible for renting houses and apartments where shipments of cocaine were stored, and for driving vehicles used to transport the drug. There is no evidence that cocaine was transported through the sprawling Marine base.

San Diego County resident Gabriel Gutierrez, who authorities said was Gonzales’ and Ibarra’s liaison to cocaine dealers in New York, provided DEA agents with damaging information about the couple and the ring’s activities, according to court documents. Earlier this year, Gutierrez and Gonzales parted ways.

Although it is not clear what caused the falling-out between the two men, Gutierrez allegedly told investigators that Gonzales put a contract on him this summer. National City Police Sgt. Tim Darton said Gutierrez was shot 12 times, including four times in the head, on Aug. 15. Gutierrez survived the botched assassination and identified his assailant to police.

The 17-year-old son of a member of Gonzales’ ring was arrested and charged with attempted murder. The teenager’s father, Guillermo Avila, was one of the defendants charged in the indictment and remains at large.

Six weeks after he was shot and hospitalized, Gutierrez was arrested at his home and charged with cocaine possession and being a felon with a gun, said Chula Vista Police Detective Gary Ficacci. Gutierrez had previous convictions for auto theft and receiving stolen property, and officers had been dispatched to his house several times on domestic dispute calls, Ficacci said. Gutierrez is in San Diego County Jail, where his would-be assassin also is being held.

According to court documents, Gutierrez told DEA agents that Gonzales used his relatives and a San Diego attorney to launder drug money “and that this lawyer sets up corporations on Carlos’ behalf.” The documents also alleged that “Carlos is building shopping centers in the United States to launder his narcotics proceeds.”

One month before the arrests, investigators monitored telephone conversations between Gonzales and Ibarra, in which they discussed their fears that they were being followed by law enforcement officials. According to Eldridge’s affidavit, Gonzales instructed Ibarra to “destroy or conceal documents and or money laundering related paraphernalia.”

In addition, Gonzales instructed Ibarra to send the documents “to John’s office and tell John that he would pick them up” and to take all the “combinations to John’s office,” said the affidavit. Investigators found three concrete safes, which they drilled open, in Gonzales’ and Ibarra’s home.

Eldridge’s affidavit also said the couple conspired to destroy some documents and hide others, along with a money-counting machine, at Gonzales’ sister’s house.

Investigators also are looking into an unusual real estate transaction between Ibarra and San Diego attorney John A. Balistreri. Balistreri, who has not been charged and is not named in court records, was listed as the first owner of Gonzales’ and Ibarra’s Yorba Linda home. According to property records, Balistreri bought the new $474,000 house on April 11, 1994, taking a $284,400 mortgage loan in the process. The deed of trust was notarized in San Diego on April 29, 1994.

On June 22, 1994, Balistreri transferred the property to the name of Adrianna Gonzales for no compensation, according to property records. Balistreri did not respond to numerous requests for comment submitted to him over the past three weeks, among them a list of questions about his relationship to Gonzales and Ibarra, his purchase of the Via Burgos house and whether he knew that Ibarra was using an alias when he transferred to property to her.

Balistreri asked Linda Goldburg, an attorney in his office, to inquire why a reporter wanted to talk to him, but he still refused to comment.

Gonzales’ and Ibarra’s house is empty now, stripped of all furniture and valuables by movers who neighbors said arrived in the middle of the night.

However, days after the raid, the house remained open, with splintered doors that could not close. Curious neighbors could not resist the temptation “to check out how the rich dopers lived,” said one neighbor. Some residents traipsed through the house on self-guided tours.

“They lived well. They had only the best, and not one but three safes in the closet,” the neighbor said.