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When authorities raided a Sylmar warehouse a year ago, seizing 21.4 tons of cocaine, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said the drug cache was the largest ever recorded anywhere in the world.
But now, as the trial of six defendants charged with stockpiling the cocaine unfolds in a federal courtroom in Los Angeles, authorities say the amount of drugs distributed by the ring was far greater than they had imagined.
The operation was so profitable, they said, that one of the alleged ringleaders-Carlos Tapia-Ponce, 69, of Mexico-was making as much as $3 million a day off the operation, according to seized ledgers.
Asked to put the figure in perspective, a DEA source said it represented about 3% of the cocaine sales generated daily in the current U.S. market. "Your mind doesn't want to believe $3 million a day, but that's the lure of narcotics," the source said.
The $3-million figure and other intelligence information was collected by the DEA and the Internal Revenue Service and is contained in a now-unsealed search warrant affidavit filed in federal court in El Paso, Tex.
The affidavit was authored by Palmira A. Lopez, a DEA agent in El Paso, who, along with Los Angeles-based DEA agent James L. Capra, is assisting federal prosecutors.
El Paso is a key city in unscrambling the Sylmar puzzle because the cocaine, which was shipped in multi-ton quantities to California, entered the border city from Mexico over a period of at least two years.
According to the affidavit, the drugs were stored in warehouses in El Paso and then moved to Los Angeles-the nation's No. 1 cocaine distribution center- aboard big-rig trucks fitted with secret compartments.
In his opening statement to a federal...