Surveillance of Pair Pays Off in Drug Bust

Officers have seized more than 1,000 pounds of cocaine with an estimated street value of $50 million and arrested four drug-smuggling suspects in Orange, officials announced Friday.

It was the second cocaine seizure this week by the Orange County Regional Narcotics Suppression Program, a team of federal, state, county and city police agencies. The team this year has confiscated 4,100 pounds of cocaine, Newport Beach Police Chief Arb Campbell said.

The four suspects, Campbell said, had been under surveillance since August, when officials learned of a group reportedly importing and disbursing large amounts of cocaine in and around Orange County.

On Wednesday, officers watched a man and woman leave a Brea residence and drive to ABC Import-Export Inc. in Orange. There, the man used a forklift to unload four wooden crates from two trucks, Campbell said.

On Thursday morning, the same man returned to ABC Import-Export in a Mitsubishi truck and was met by the woman. They drove to a nearby parking lot and met two other people, one of whom had arrived in a van, Campbell said.

The man drove that van back to ABC, loaded items into it and then again gathered with the others a short distance away, where officers arrested all four.

The van contained more than 600 pounds of cocaine, Campbell said.

Officials with search warrants found another 440 pounds of cocaine at ABC and a small amount of cash at the Brea home, Campbell said.

Booked on suspicion of conspiracy to possess cocaine for sale were Rodrigo Alberto R. Cordoba, 32; Rodrigo O’Campo Betancur, 31; Gabriel Jaime Puerta, 24, all of Colombia, and Martha Ortiz, 33, of Nicaragua, Campbell said.

The four were being held at Orange County Jail on bail of $10 million each.

On Tuesday, the task force seized 427 pounds of cocaine in Santa Ana and arrested three people. But the recent seizures have just “scratched the surface” of cocaine trafficking in the county and in Southern California, Campbell said.

“The information we have is that the traffic is moving rapidly from Florida to the West Coast,” he said.

Regional Unit Cocaine Seizures in 1987

The following are major drug case arrests involving the Orange County Regional Narcotics Suppression Program, a joint law enforcement task force. Some of the arrests took place outside the county.

Date Cocaine Cash Location Seized Seized of Arrests March 17 50 lbs Phoenix March 27 8 lbs $135,000 Anaheim Buena Park Santa Ana Westminster May 29 1,248 lbs Riverside July 1 $1.6 million Orange County Riverside Aug. 6 718 lbs $1.1 million Ontario Riverside Sept. 3 319 lbs $120,000 Fullerton Oct. 13 427 lbs Santa Ana Oct. 15 1,100 lbs Orange

Source: Orange County Sheriff’s Department