Texas Warehouses, Alleged Staging Points for Drug Shipments, Raided

Federal agents in Texas have raided six El Paso warehouses allegedly used as staging points for the 20 tons of cocaine shipped to Sylmar and seized last week in the world’s largest cocaine bust.

With the investigation expanding into Mexico, federal police in Ciudad Juarez also raided three houses there tied to at least one of the suspects arrested in Los Angeles.

The warehouses in El Paso and the Mexican homes were apparently used by drug traffickers for stopovers as they transported the cocaine from Colombia to Los Angeles, with Mexico the intermediate point, officials said.

Seven suspects arrested Friday--four in Los Angeles and three in Las Vegas--were expected to go before a federal magistrate today for arraignment, officials said.

No additional arrests were made during the El Paso and Juarez raids, which took place Friday night.

“We feel these warehouses were used as staging warehouses before the cocaine was sent to Los Angeles,” Drug Enforcement Administration special agent Phil Jordan told the El Paso Times.

The DEA did not disclose the addresses of the warehouses. There are several industrial sections of El Paso with several warehouses, including an area near the bridges that span the U.S.-Mexican border.

Boxes and Mexican ceramics similar to the ones found in the Sylmar warehouse were seized, as were a tractor and two trailers with the kind of secret compartment often used for smuggling. Five hundred pounds of marijuana were discovered in the compartment of one of the trailers, Jordan said.

Jordan said one of the suspects arrested in Los Angeles, identified as James McTague Romero, made a telephone call from the Los Angeles jail to the Juarez house as Mexican police searched it.