CRIME : Car’s Heavy Load Yields Weighty Cocaine Bust
The car’s suspension gave it away.
Alert narcotics detectives who noticed a car that seemed too weighted down for its four-passenger load led police to the seizure of more than 800 pounds of cocaine with an estimated street value of $7.8 million.
The Santa Ana detectives, who were working on another case in East Los Angeles last Thursday morning, followed the car to a house at 789 1/2 West Center St. in Pomona, said Santa Ana Police Lt. Robert Helton.
The car pulled into the garage about 1 p.m. and emerged at 5:15 p.m., “riding high as if empty,†Helton said.
The detectives stopped the car and found about 68 pounds of cocaine hidden in secret compartments.
Helton said the detectives alerted Pomona police, obtained a search warrant and raided the house. They found an additional 755 pounds of cocaine stashed in the garage.
Four men were arrested, all residents of Mexicali, Mexico, a border town in northern Baja California. Juan Baducuki Fernandez, 29, Guadelupe Higuera Haro, 32, Joselino Ojeda Camacho, 35, and Gustavo Angulo Camacho, 29, were all booked into Pomona jail on a variety of drug charges. Each was held on $5-million bail, Pomona police said.
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