There's venom in denim?
dailynews.yahoo.com
Friday September 11 10:37 AM EDT
There's venom in denim?
By Angus MacSwan
MIAMI (Reuters) - It looked like a fitting way to launder the profits of a drug deal: trade a load of
cocaine and heroin valued at more than $500,000 for 12,000 pairs of jeans.
But the denim-for-dope swap left the alleged dealers blue when it turned out they were bartering with
undercover agents.
As a result of a 22-month investigation, three men were arrested, one of them believed to be the
ringleader of a Naples, Florida, distribution network, the Collier County Sheriff's Office said
Thursday.
They were identified as: Jorge Mario Zuluaga, 33, a Colombian national who managed the Ultra-Rite
car wash in Naples; Carlos Mario Cepeda, 39, also Colombian, of Davie, Florida, and Gustavo
Hernandez, 34, of Naples.
Police seized 46.2 pounds of cocaine with a wholesale value of about $462,000 and about one
pound of heroin worth about $47,500 wholesale.
During the operation, authorities said, undercover agents learned the three defendants planned to
hijack a truckload of jeans, including Levis and other name brands.
The agents convinced the dealers that, by chance, they already had a load of stolen jeans they were
willing to trade for heroin and cocaine.
''Jeans are a very expensive commodity in some foreign countries,'' Lt. Jack Lloyd told Reuters.
''They could make big money out of them in Colombia or other South American countries.''
''We had shown them the jeans. We had a semi-truck full we had borrowed,'' Lloyd said.
Zuluaga, Cepeda and Hernandez were held without bond on charges of conspiracy to distribute
cocaine or heroin.
In searches of Zuluaga's residence and the car wash, two handguns, two cars and $2,300 in cash
were seized, authorities said.
Lloyd said the gang is believed to have been moving between 6 and 11 pounds of cocaine a month
through the Naples area, part of a Florida smuggling corridor. |
