7 Charged in Cocaine Operation Run From Suburban Homes : Crime: The defendants allegedly stored the drug in San Gabriel Valley houses for drop-offs in parking lots.

Seven Colombians, including two Westside men believed to be linchpins of the Cali cocaine cartel, were formally charged Monday in Los Angeles on allegations that they operated a sophisticated drug distribution network that used suburban homes as warehouses and San Gabriel Valley store parking lots as drop-off points.

The federal court proceedings, at which all but one of the defendants pleaded not guilty, came as part of a two-year federal campaign against the cartel, which is based in Cali, Colombia, and is believed to be responsible for most of the cocaine distributed in the United States.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Lisa Lench, who is prosecuting the suspected traffickers, said nearly three tons of cocaine was seized in the operation. She said it was run by two “executives” who supervised a network of couriers in the San Gabriel Valley by phone from their homes on the Westside.

The alleged distribution bosses--30-year-old Diego Fernando Salazar-Izquierdo, alias “Zorro,” and Over Arturo Acuna, 34, who was nicknamed “Brother”--relayed their orders to couriers via an elaborate code that authorities cracked, the prosecutor said.

The two men, she said, operated only as middle men in the larger scheme of the cartel, but, from a federal standpoint, were “as high up as you get with Colombians in the United States.”

Officials at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in Washington have said the case also is significant for what it reveals about the sophistication and flexibility of the Cali cartel’s distribution methods.

The parallel operations that were being run by Salazar-Izquierdo and Acuna were set up after a series of drug seizures in Houston prompted the cartel to begin stockpiling cocaine in Mexico for shipment though Los Angeles, DEA supervisors said.

According to indictments unsealed Friday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, the two operations had been under investigation for the past five months by a task force of local and federal law enforcement agencies, who relied heavily on wiretaps and surveillance to make their cases.

Salazar-Izquierdo and Acuna, the indictments allege, dealt by phone with at least five accomplices who would pick up hundreds of kilograms of cocaine and store it in “stash houses,” where it would eventually be picked up and sent to New York, Chicago or Canada.

The court papers detail the handling of shipment after shipment allegedly handled during the summer by the two men. In one case, authorities listened in as an unidentified Colombian caller told Salazar-Izquierdo in code that a shipment of cocaine had arrived June 11. Salazar-Izquierdo then allegedly used the same code to instruct his driver, Wilbert Moises (Josesillo) Lopez, 36, to make a pickup at a Rialto Jack in the Box. The following day, Lopez allegedly used the code to inform Salazar-Izquierdo that he had retrieved 638 kilograms of the drug.

The indictments include a number of similar pickups, most in Pasadena: 100 kilos dropped off at a Vons supermarket, 194 kilos at a Hughes market lot, 150 at a Ralphs, 80 at a pancake restaurant and 200 at a Thrifty store.

But other suburbs also got an unwitting piece of the action, prosecutors claim. The parking lot of a Thrifty in South Pasadena allegedly was the drop-off point for 84 kilos of coke; 349 kilos exchanged hands at the Santa Anita Fashion Park in Arcadia; 200 went through the Kmart lot in San Gabriel, 186 through the Home Depot in Upland and 100 through the San Gabriel T.J. Maxx lot.

Prosecutors said the cocaine was stored at four suburban homes, in Pasadena, South Pasadena, Arcadia and La Verne.

Indicted along with Salazar-Izquierdo, Acuna and Lopez were Jorge Sofrony Gordillo, 42, who was Acuna’s roommate; Robinson Esmeral, 34, and Gustavo Arias-Pinzon, 40, who were arrested at an Arcadia home where 150 kilos of cocaine were seized; and Manuel Quevada, 31, a suspected courier who was arrested at an Arleta house where more than $139,000 in cash was seized, officials said.

All defendants face life in prison if convicted. All but Lopez, who was not present, pleaded not guilty at their arraignment Monday. Trial is scheduled for Nov. 8 before U.S. District Judge Edward Rafeedie.

Lench said six other suspects are fugitives, and several others were investigated but not indicted.

“I would be naive to believe that we’ve put an end to it,” she said, “but I think . . . they’re going to have to regroup some because we took two of their most experienced people and figured out how they were doing it (running the operation).”