Man Wanted in Drug Case Is Arrested

A 19-year-old man who has been on the run for a year since his family was named by authorities as the largest West Coast supplier of the so-called “date-rape” drug has been captured in Port Hueneme, sheriff’s officials said Thursday.

Fernando Palazuelos Villar was arrested by Ventura County sheriff’s deputies about 8 p.m. Wednesday after they received a tip that he was staying with his mother at a condominium in the 2500 block of Tiller Avenue, Sheriff’s Capt. Keith Parks said.

During the arrest, Villar denied that he was a wanted man until deputies produced a copy of his photograph and a description of his tattoos from a segment of the television show “America’s Most Wanted,” Parks said.

Villar, his father and his older brother were the focus of an undercover operation in the summer of 1997 in which state and federal authorities charged that the three were selling the date-rape drug and other prescription medications from the family’s Chula Vista home in San Diego’s South Bay area.

The drug Rohypnol, known on the street as “roofies,” is a sleep aid that is 10 times more powerful than Valium and can render a person unconscious for several hours. It is banned in the United States but legally prescribed in other countries.

Rohypnol first received national attention a couple of years ago after it was learned that sexual predators were using it to knock out their victims.

“Ultimately, what a person can do is secretly dump this into a female’s drink, causing her to become less aware of her surroundings and possibly unconscious and unable to defend herself,” Rodney Adams, a DEA spokesman familiar with the Villar case, said Thursday.

Carlos Villar Sr., a 49-year-old pharmacist, and his son, Carlos Villar Jr., 22, were arrested in July 1997, and subsequently pleaded guilty to drug charges. Both remain in prison, authorities said.

At the time his father and brother were arrested, Fernando Villar was living at the family home and was detained by authorities, but was later released. After more evidence was obtained, a $100,000 warrant was issued for his arrest on suspicion of conspiracy, drug possession and drug sales.

“This was the largest Rohypnol case west of the Mississippi,” said Gordon Paul Davis, the San Diego County deputy district attorney who prosecuted Villar Sr. and Villar Jr.

Davis would not elaborate on the additional evidence, but said Fernando Villar had been wanted in connection with the Rohypnol distribution ring headed by his father and brother.

“We were basically taking down the primary players, and we subsequently moved from the principals down to the collateral suspects,” Davis said.

The prosecutor and others involved in the investigation declined to say whether additional arrests would occur or whether the Rohypnol sales were continuing. Authorities said Fernando Villar had hidden in Mexico and Port Hueneme during the past year.

The case broke July 2, 1997, when Carlos Villar Sr. and his oldest son were arrested during a raid on their home by San Diego police and DEA agents, Adams said.

“We had someone working on the inside who became aware of” the Rohypnol ring, Adams said.

On that day, authorities confiscated about 60,000 prescription pills in bottles and bags that had a street value of more than $100,000, Adams said.

More than 200 bottles of Rohypnol, a small white tablet that is often crushed and mixed into a beverage, were seized, along with large quantities of Valium, Percodan and steroids, Adams said. Three handguns and ammunition also were seized.

“There were boxes and boxes of controlled pharmaceutical substances at the Villar home,” according to Adams.

On Oct. 4, 1997, Carlos Villar Sr. and Carlos Jr. pleaded guilty in San Diego Superior Court to possessing illegal drugs for sale. Carlos Villar Sr. also pleaded guilty to weapons violations. A month later, the elder Villar was sentenced to 12 years in prison and his son received a three-year term, Davis said.

During sentencing, the father’s defense attorney acknowledged that his client had violated the law, but said that he was selling the drugs to people with legitimate medical problems, according to media accounts.

Davis disputed that claim.

“They were selling to people who engaged in rave parties, to college kids, underground clubs, college users and recreation drugs users,” he said.

Authorities said the Villars were getting large quantities of Rohypnol from a family owned pharmacy in Tijuana and smuggling it across the border for wholesale and street sales in California and across the country.

The operation was uncovered when Carlos Villar Jr. unknowingly sold Rohypnol to an undercover agent.

Fernando Villar remained jailed in Ventura on Thursday night on a San Diego County warrant on suspicion of conspiracy, possession of drugs and possession of drugs for sale. His bail has been set at more than $100,000.

He was also being held on suspicion of possessing less than a gram of heroin that deputies found on him during his arrest, Parks said. He will be arraigned at 1 p.m. today.