Organised Crime in California

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Cambodian gang busted in California

From correspondents in Los Angeles

June 07, 2007 07:23am
Article from: Agence France-Presse


CALIFORNIAN authorities have busted an ethnic Cambodian street gang, arresting 35 members who used internet and text messages to plot drive-by shootings and traffic guns and drugs.

"The Loc Town Crips terrorised Stockton neighbourhoods and operated a virtual underground business, using the internet, text messaging and FedEx to complete their deals," Attorney General Jerry Brown said.

The gang, which had about 100 members in Stockton, 130 kilometres east of San Francisco, shipped cash, drugs and guns via delivery services such as FedEx, DHL and UPS to other associates and gangs around the country.

The weapons were also used in drive-by shootings against rival gangs, Mr Brown's office said.

"In the last six months, the gang participated in at least four drive-by shootings in the Stockton area alone".

Afterwards, gang members boasted of their exploits on internet sites such as Myspace, and posted recordings of rap songs detailing their activities.

Today's arrests were a "major take-down" of the Loc Town Crips' key leaders, officials said, and were the biggest this year by California police who are fighting a tough battle against gangs across the state.

The arrests followed a six-month investigation by the attorney general's office, which uncovered a network of widespread violence and drug-dealing including sales of methamphetamines, ecstasy and marijuana all the way across to the east coast.

Police estimate there are nearly 500 Asian street gangs in California, most of them organised by ethnic Vietnamese, Chinese-Vietnamese, Cambodians, Laotians or Hmong.

[Hollander]

SoCal grocery chain owner indicted in federal racketeering case
The Associated Press
2007-06-14 05:18:10.0
Current rank: # 1,208 of 13,797

LOS ANGELES - The owner of a grocery store chain has been indicted on federal racketeering charges alleging he ran a criminal enterprise that orchestrated murders, bribed city officials, laundered money and aided drug traffickers, authorities said Wednesday.

George Torres, who owns 11 Numero Uno markets scattered across the city, faced racketeering, violence in aid of racketeering, tax evasion and fraud charges, according to a 59-count grand jury indictment unsealed Wednesday.

Seven others, including former Los Angeles planning commissioners Steve Carmona and George Luk accused of taking part in a bribery scheme, were also charged in the indictment.

Torres, 50, was arrested Tuesday at his Arcadia home during a raid in which authorities seized about $1.25 million in cash and more than 60 vehicles from various locations. His brother and son have also been charged.

"Those arrested in this investigation are part of an organization that has brought crime, violence and drugs to our street corners in order to bolster their personal wealth," said Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent in Charge Timothy J. Landrum.

Torres was ordered held without bail during his first court appearance Wednesday, federal prosecutors said in a statement. If convicted of all counts, he could face up to life in prison.

Torres' attorney, Brian Sun, said his client "will be vigorously contesting these charges."

In the indictment, prosecutors alleged Torres provided Carmona a condominium, truck, cash and tickets to basketball games in an attempt to get a permit to sell alcohol at one of his stores.

An attorney for Carmona, 39, said his client was innocent of the charges, which included conspiracy, mail and wire fraud and loan fraud.

"He's being prosecuted because of his affiliation with George Torres," attorney Mark J. Werksman said.

An attorney for Luk could not immediately be located. Federal prosecutors said Luk, who was charged with conspiracy and mail and wire fraud, worked with Carmona to obtain permits for Torres and received a $15,000 check from Torres.

The indictment also alleged Torres stored and received stolen merchandise, had security guards extort money from suspected shoplifters in exchange for not reporting them to police and knowingly hired illegal immigrants to work in his stores.

In addition, federal prosecutors said Torres ordered several murders, including a drive-by shooting that killed a gang member in 1993 in retaliation for the murder of a Numero Uno security guard. Prosecutors alleged Torres also ordered the shooting death of a Mexican Mafia gang associate who demanded a cash payment.

Prosecutors said a Torres employee was behind the two killings, and Torres later offered money and weapons to another associate to kill the employee after the employee came under suspicion of stealing $500,000 from one of Torres' stores.

The indictment also alleged Torres and his associates paid employees in cash and removed money from and tampered with cash registers in an attempt to submit false tax reports to the Internal Revenue Service.

[Hollander]

Grocer's racketeering case roils L.A.
By Andrew Glazer, Associated Press Writer | July 3, 2007

LOS ANGELES --Federal prosecutors describe George Torres as a discount don who murdered his rivals, intimidated his employees and bribed public officials to expand his supermarket chain.

Torres, owner of 11 Numero Uno markets in poor Los Angeles neighborhoods, pleaded not guilty Monday was ordered held without bail in a case that also implicates former civic officials. He is charged with racketeering, tax evasion and fraud.

Torres' alleged confederates, including brother Manuel Torres-Ramos, 53; son Steven Torres, 26; George Luk, 58, a member of the Los Angeles Convention and Exhibition Center Authority Commission; and Steven Carmona, 39, a former member of the Los Angeles Central Area Planning Commission, also pleaded not guilty. Manuel Torres-Ramos also remained locked up.

The 59-count federal indictment accuses Torres, 50, of ordering hits on rivals, bribing public officials who could help him get liquor licenses, staffing stores with illegal immigrants fearful of asking for raises, and moving and storing stolen meat, produce and Tang breakfast drink.

George Torres' lawyer Brian Sun denied the charges.

"This is much ado about nothing," he said before the arraignment.

A trial was set for August.

Until his June 13 arrest, Torres had been praised for providing fresh and affordable produce and meat to low-income communities all but abandoned by other supermarket chains.

Authorities, however, say the grocer's success had less to do with reaching an untapped market and more to do with muscle.

The grocer hired drug dealers as heavies to chill competitors and, at times, kill those who crossed him, prosecutors allege. After a Numero Uno security guard was killed by a member of the Primera Flats street gang in 1993, authorities said Torres ordered employee Ignacio Meza to retaliate. Meza allegedly killed a member of the gang in a drive-by shooting using a .45-caliber gun that Torres provided.

In 1994, Torres ordered a hit on a member of the Mexican Mafia who attempted to extort protection money from one of his markets, investigators contend in court records. Soon after, Meza shot the suspected gangster on the sidewalk across the street from a Numero Uno market.

When Torres believed Meza had stolen $500,000 from the market, he had him whacked, as well, prosecutors say.

Even lowly shoplifters paid for affronting the supermarket owner, according to the indictment. Torres allegedly had a towering security guard, Mario Solano, and sidekick Carlos Monterosso shake down cash from those suspected of sticky fingers in exchange for not reporting them to police. Solano and Monterosso also pleaded not guilty to related charges Monday.

When Torres wanted to ensure a liquor license for a South Los Angeles market, he allegedly greased Carmona with Los Angeles Lakers tickets, $6,200 in tires and rims for a Cadillac and a new GMC pickup truck.

Carmona, believed to have lived in a condo owned by Torres that satisfied a residency requirement to serve on the commission, at one point left a message for the grocer asking for more: "Is there any bling-bling?" Carmona asked, according to court papers.

Luk, while a member of the Los Angeles Central Area Planning Commission, is suspected of also lobbying colleagues to approve Torres' liquor license.

In an April 2005 telephone conversation, Luk and Carmona decided to ask Torres to give an unidentified member of the Los Angeles City Council $10,000 to support a liquor license for another market, according to the indictment.

Luk declined to answer questions outside the courtroom. Carmona's lawyer, Mark Werksman, said outside that his client was innocent.

"The charges are exaggerated and allegations overblown," he said.

[Hollander]

Grocery King George Torres Fingered in Murders
Racketeering charges against Numero Uno markets founder include bribing two former L.A. planning commissioners

By JEFFREY ANDERSON
Wednesday, June 13, 2007 - 7:30 pm

One of many properties Torres owns in Los Angeles (Photo by Rena Kosnett) FEDERAL PROSECUTORS on Wednesday afternoon arraigned George Torres, one of South Los Angeles’ largest property owners and the owner of the Numero Uno supermarket chain, on murder charges. Also arraigned on a variety of racketeering charges, such as extortion and bribery, were several codefendants, including Torres’ brother Manuel, son Steven and former Los Angeles city planning commissioners Steve Carmona and George Luk.

The federal indictment was unsealed in federal court in downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday. Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy Searight, who filed the indictment, requested that the court unseal it. High-powered attorneys Brian Sun and Jeff Rawitz of the firm Jones Day were in court to represent Torres, and Sun called it “an unusual case,” adding, “Mr. Torres is a standup businessman. He built his business through hard work and community development.” Rawitz commented on the indictment, “It’s an incredible document.”

The indictment charges Torres with bribing then–city planning commissioner Steve Carmona to gain approval of an alcohol permit at one of his South L.A. markets. “Is there any bling-bling?” Carmona said in a voice-mail message for Torres on March 19, 2004, the indictment states.

The racketeering offenses date back to 1985 and include a series of allegations over the course of 20 years, among them possession of stolen goods, conspiracy to commit murder, harboring of undocumented aliens and conspiracy to engage in extortion and bribery. “Torres exploited his own workers through physical intimidation and hired drug dealers as muscle,” Searight said.

Humberto Diaz, attorney for former Los Angeles city planning commissioner Luk, had no comment. Mark Werksman, the attorney for Carmona, a former Los Angeles city Central Area planning commissioner, did not return calls at press time.

Agents with the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program took Torres into custody at his home Tuesday in Arcadia and searched his business headquarters at 700 East Jefferson Boulevard, also arresting his brother, son and others in what figures to be a complex and riveting federal racketeering case against one of L.A.’s most mysterious businessmen.

Torres started out with a food cart on a street corner in the humble neighborhoods south of downtown Los Angeles, in the LAPD’s Newton Division, and amassed a small empire of grocery stores and real estate holdings stretching from industrial properties in South L.A. to a horse farm in Santa Barbara County.

But with his arrest Tuesday and arraignment Wednesday afternoon, his rags-to-riches story will be tainted by the federal charges.

Torres is best known as a former business associate of Horacio “Carlos” Vignali, who in the late 1990s lobbied city officials, state legislators, U.S. congressmen, former U.S. Attorney Alejandro Mayorkas and Cardinal Roger Mahony to write letters urging President Bill Clinton to grant clemency to Vignali’s drug-dealer son, Carlos Vignali Jr., leading in part to a national scandal known as “Pardongate.”

However, Vignali is not named in the Torres indictment.

Torres is one of the largest, if not the largest, private landowners in South L.A., with his holdings starting at Washington Boulevard and extending south. His Numero Uno markets have flourished throughout the Los Angeles area, and he was estimated at one time to have a net worth of at least $300 million, according to Drug Enforcement Administration documents obtained by the L.A. Weekly.

In the past, he has been convicted of several gun-possession charges, including a probation violation for being a felon in possession of a gun, according to the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office. But DEA documents also state that the LAPD named him a suspect in two murders dating back to the 1990s. Those documents surfaced in 2002 as part of a congressional report resulting from Pardongate.

The Weekly explored Pardongate in detail in 2005, including the history of business and real estate transactions between Torres and Vignali. LAPD sources confirmed for the Weekly at the time that Torres was under investigation for the suspected murder of a former employee gone missing and presumed dead. At the time of his disappearance in the late 1990s, that employee, Ignacio Meza, was wanted for conspiracy to distribute cocaine by federal authorities in Alabama. The indictment alleges that Torres conspired with Meza to commit a pair of murders — and then had Meza himself murdered. His body has not been found.

Torres’ attorneys, Michael Adelson and Robert Eisfelder, confirmed for the Weekly at that time that detectives searched Torres’ Jefferson Boulevard warehouse, which sits adjacent to his flagship market, in late 2004, but insist police found nothing to implicate Torres in anything illegal. In a 2005 interview, Eisfelder denied strenuously that his client was involved with any illegal activity.

“As we look closely into his affairs, we find him to be a Horatio Alger–type figure, a self-made man whose story is an inspiration,” Eisfelder said at the time.



THE TORRES-VIGNALI CONNECTION is explored in detail in a congressional report that resulted from Pardongate, when revelations surfaced that President Clinton granted clemency for Carlos Vignali Jr. — convicted of drug trafficking and sentenced to 15 years in federal prison in 1995 — along with other convicted criminals and one-time international fugitive Marc Rich. The granting of clemency occurred after payments were made to Clinton’s brother-in-law, Hugh Rodham, the brother of former first lady, New York state senator and 2008 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Released in March 2002 by the congressional Committee on Government Reform, “Justice Undone: Clemency Decisions in the Clinton White House” details Hugh Rodham’s involvement in the Vignali affair, as well as the long business history Vignali once shared with George Torres.

The report takes to task top L.A. elected officials, including county Supervisor Gloria Molina, then–state Senator Richard Polanco, then–state Assemblyman Antonio Villaraigosa and U.S. Representative Xavier Becerra, among others, for lobbying on behalf of Vignali Jr., in light of his drug conviction and the fact that DEA agents long suspected Vignali Sr. to be involved in drug trafficking — along with Torres. While a member of the California state Assembly, Villaraigosa wrote the first letter on Vignali’s behalf on May 24, 1996.

In particular, L.A. Sheriff Lee Baca and former U.S. Attorney Alejandro Mayorkas were heavily criticized for lobbying for Vignali Jr.’s clemency. The report found the input of Baca and Mayorkas to the White House to be “instrumental” in the decision to grant clemency to Vignali Jr., who at his drug-trafficking trial in 1994 confirmed a close family association with Torres. Attorneys for Torres told the Weekly in 2005 that the association between the Vignalis and Torres has long since ended.

It is unclear if any of the DEA documents incorporated in the congressional report form the basis of any of the charges filed Wednesday against Torres. However, the indictment states that associates of Torres distributed large quantities of cocaine and received cars and free grocery-store items in exchange for taking violent actions on behalf of Torres.

According to 1993 and 1997 DEA reports, Torres allegedly maintained a Jefferson Boulevard warehouse full of luxury vehicles, antique lowriders, and tractor-trailers used to move cocaine by concealing the drugs inside laundry detergent and jalapeño-chile cans. He and Vignali were identified as immediate targets of a drug-trafficking investigation, the reports state. The reports further state that the DEA had been informed that the Torres drug-trafficking outfit came into existence in the mid-1980s, distributing 1,800 kilos by the early 1990s.

A 1998 DEA report states that the elder Vignali was believed to be a financial partner in the Torres organization, allegedly setting up meetings between Torres and “individuals with extensive criminal backgrounds.” They were moving 100 kilos per month, the report states. In 1996, the report states, Torres’ grocery stores had sales of $50 million. Investigators believed he was laundering drug money through his stores and real estate transactions. Searight said the government lacks sufficient proof to file drug charges.

Public records show Torres and Vignali engaged in numerous multimillion-dollar property transactions, either as partners or on opposite sides of a deal. The elder Vignali was known as a well-heeled businessman who rubbed elbows with politicians. After his son was convicted, he contributed more than $160,000 to state and federal officeholders — as well as to many local officials, including Baca. Torres was described in DEA reports as a tattooed heavy who flaunted Mexican Mafia connections and liked to intimidate his adversaries.

The DEA reports are untrue, Adelson, an attorney for Torres, told the Weekly in 2005. “They are based on layers of hearsay by persons with something to gain and whom the government has not identified,” he said, emphasizing that Torres no longer had business or personal relationships with the Vignalis. “That is an unfortunate association,” said Torres’ attorney, Brian Sun, on Wednesday.

[Hollander]

White supremacist convicted in O.C. slaying
A partial verdict was read after a juror was excused for health reasons. Deliberations will begin anew on remaining charges.
By Christine Hanley, Times Staff Writer
July 3, 2007


A member of the white supremacist gang Public Enemy Number One was convicted Monday of conspiracy to commit murder in the 2002 execution-style killing of a gang founder who had disclosed the organization's secrets on a television news program.

Michael Lamb also was found guilty of possessing a firearm used in the attempted shooting of an Anaheim police officer. The officer was investigating a report of a stolen car in the days after gang member Scott Miller was found dead in an Anaheim alley with a single gunshot wound to the back of his head.

Lamb's co-defendant, Jacob Rump, was also convicted of the firearm charge.

The partial verdict was read in Orange County Superior Court shortly after a juror, backed by a doctor's note, informed the court he was too ill to continue deliberating.

Juror No. 7 was excused on the sixth day of deliberations. With an alternate replacing him, the jury will start from scratch in deciding on a number of more serious counts against Lamb and Rump, including the first-degree murder charge against both men.

Lamb, the alleged triggerman in Miller's slaying, faces up to life in prison if convicted of conspiracy. He could face the death penalty if convicted of murder.

His attorney, Marlin Stapleton, said the partial verdict was a sign that the jury was "obviously not sure" his client killed Miller.

"Who knows what will happen now that Juror No. 7 is gone?" Stapleton said outside the courtroom. "I don't know if he was the one hanging up the jury."

Deputy Dist. Atty. Ebrahim Baytieh, the lead prosecutor, declined to comment until the completion of all proceedings in the case.

Miller, 38, was killed in March 2002, about a year after he appeared on Fox News in Los Angeles talking about the gang he helped form.

Lamb and Rump, both of Huntington Beach, were taken into custody three days later after a police chase that ended with Lamb allegedly shooting at — and missing — an Anaheim police officer who was one of his pursuers.

Tests showed that the gun was the same weapon used to kill Miller.

According to authorities and testimony during the monthlong trial, Miller helped found Public Enemy Number One in the Long Beach area in the 1980s. The gang, which seeks to "secure the existence of our people and a future for white children," has since spread to Orange County and the Inland Empire.

With an estimated 300 members across Southern California, the group's operations allegedly include drug dealing, identity thefts, forgeries and counterfeiting.

[Hollander]

Gypsy Clans Feud Over Fortunetelling Biz

Dec 5, 2:44 PM (ET)



NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. (AP) - A dispute between two Gypsy clans over control of the fortunetelling trade in this Southern California city has spilled into court, offering a rare glimpse of an insular culture that has long settled scores according to its own Old World rules of honor.

The turf war in well-to-do Orange County has unfolded like a gangster movie, with allegations of death threats, a graveside scuffle, and nicknames like "White Bob" and "Black Bob" - details revealed in a police report and requests for restraining orders.

"The older Gypsies are pulling out their hair, not wanting the courts in our business because they'll find out too much about us," said Tom Merino, who is distantly related to one of the clans but has spurned his heritage. "Ignorance is the Gypsies' weapon against the outside world."

The Stevens and Merino clans, like other Gypsy families, have run numerous fortunetelling businesses in Southern California for decades.

The trouble started two years ago when Edward Merino and his wife, Sonia, opened fortunetelling parlors in two trendy resort sections of Newport Beach, not far from where the Stevenses did business.

Members of the Stevens clan promptly broke in, stole a credit card machine and threatened to kill the Merinos if they didn't shut the places down, the Merinos claim in court papers. Since then, the bad blood has only gotten worse.

The Stevenses "are very territorial," Merino attorney Tom Quinn said. "This is crazy stuff."

At the root of the conflict lies a delicate system of intermarriage and social customs that has defused tensions among Gypsy clans for generations, said Anne Sutherland, a University of California, Riverside anthropologist who has studied Gypsies.

Gypsies trace their origins to India more than 1,000 years ago. They migrated to Europe in the 1300s. For centuries, Gypsies were enslaved and persecuted in Europe, where they were scorned as nomadic thieves and con artists skilled primarily at palm reading.

Gypsies - also known as Romany - began arriving in the U.S. from Romania toward the end of the 19th century. Experts believe there are now about 1 million in America, one-fifth of them in California, where they dominate the fortunetelling and psychic shops in funky beach communities and other neighborhoods.

The Stevens and Merino clans adopted an Old World custom of uniting families through marriage to cope with intense competition, much as European nobility once did to avert war. A Merino married the Stevens patriarch, George Stevens.

But the family bond did not prevent tensions from flaring when, the Merinos say, the Stevenses demanded they pay $500,000 up front and $5,000 a week to open their fortunetelling businesses in the Stevenses' back yard. The Merinos refused to pay, and went ahead and opened their parlors. The alleged break-in soon followed.

Gypsies have traditionally resolved disputes in front of a secret council of elders that can impose fines, make territorial decisions or order someone shunned. They don't like to involve non-Gypsies, who are considered impure.

The Merinos, though, went to court after the alleged break-in and obtained a restraining order in 2006 requiring George Stevens to stay a safe distance away.

That the dispute wound up in court reflects an erosion of tradition among the Gypsies, said Ian Hancock, an expert on Gypsy language and culture at the University of Texas.

"It used to be that the Romany world was absolutely insulated from the outside world," said Hancock, a Gypsy himself. "But it's very hard to resist the pressures of MTV, and people are beginning to see alternatives."

He cited cases in which Gypsy women in Houston hired lawyers to get their ex-husbands to pay child support - something previously unheard of.

Things were calm for months until the Stevens patriarch died of a heart attack at age 53 last May. Edward "Davie" Merino showed up at the funeral, pulling up at the cemetery in a limo with what was described as a menacingly burly chauffeur.

Merino says members of the Stevens clan attacked him and screamed, "We will make your life a living hell!" But the Stevenses claim that Merino flashed a gun and threatened to "come back and kill all of you." Both sides agree that before speeding off, Merino shouted that he wanted to make sure "the mother-(expletive) was dead."

Merino declined repeated requests for an interview through his attorney and calls to his home were not returned.

After the scrap, someone left ominous phone messages and threatened to kill Sonia Merino and the couple's children, ages 9 and 11, Edward Merino claimed in court papers.

Edward Merino filed for restraining orders against four Stevens men and two Stevens women. Over the summer, a judge granted such an order against just one person, the new Stevens patriarch, Ted Stevens.

Stevens' nephew, the only Gypsy directly involved in the feud who spoke to The Associated Press, said the Merinos concocted the allegations and are using the courts to try to drive their rivals out of Newport Beach.

"They beat themselves up and then they testify that we hired people to come to their house and beat them up," said Steve Stevens, who goes by the nickname "White Bob" to distinguish him from his swarthier cousin, "Black Bob."

Stevens, who owns two fortunetelling parlors and a deli, added: "I feel like they've made me out like a character on 'The Sopranos.' I'm a businessman. I'm a family man. That's all I am."

[UTC]

"King of the Gypsies" was an interesting read. The mother had to try to sneak the kids to school because the father would beat her and them if they were not out begging instead. Common for the young men to engage in gay prostitution in NYC simply as a side job. You've heard all the prejudices and stereotypes? They're true.

[Junior]

California police arrest 100 over marijuana growing
BBC News, July 30, 2011

Police in northern California have uprooted 460,000 plants and made more than 100 arrests in a major operation against illegal marijuana cultivation.

Authorities said they had seized 1,500 pounds (680kg) of processed marijuana, 27 guns and 11 vehicles over two weeks in Mendocino National Forest.

The 900,000-acre site is part of an area known as the Emerald Triangle for its high number of marijuana plots.

The raids are part of a wider campaign to remove marijuana from public land.

Marijuana for medicinal use is legal in California if you have a permit to grow it or a doctor's note to buy it.

But Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman said there was no sign that any of the gardens raided were being used to grow medical marijuana.

In the past, Mexican drug cartels have been blamed for the cultivation large quantities of marijuana in California, though no details were given about those arrested over the past two weeks.

But US Attorney Melinda Haag told the Associated Press that 25 people were already facing federal charges.

"The Mendocino National Forest is under attack by drug traffickers," she said.

Public land is often chosen by clandestine growers because of its remoteness.

Forest Service officials in California have long expressed concern about the environmental impact of the cultivation.

[Junior]

Four men arrested in L.A-to-N.Y cocaine smuggling ring
ASSOCIATED PRESS, New York Post, August 3, 2011

HAUPPAGUE, N.Y. — Four men have been arrested and a suspected ringleader was still being sought in a California-to-New York cocaine smuggling ring that used luxury vehicles equipped with secret compartments to send drugs and money cross-country, a prosecutor said Wednesday.

The four suspects in custody were arrested last month on Long Island, Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota said at a press conference. The men were being held on preliminary charges of possession of a controlled substance, but he said upgraded charges were likely against them — and possibly others involved in distributing the cocaine once it got to Long Island — once the case is presented to a grand jury.

The prosecutor said police seized $3 million worth of cocaine, $900,000 in cash, steroids, money counters and other paraphernalia from several locations. Also seized were eight vehicles, including a Mercedes-Benz and two Cadillac SUVs.

Besides the secret compartments, the ring took extra precautions by placing the vehicles on car carriers ordinarily used by legitimate auto dealers. The car carrier companies weren’t aware that drugs were being shipped inside the vehicles, authorities said.

“To give you an idea of the money generated by this ring,” Spota said, “They were purchasing the cocaine in California for $20,500 per kilo — and then selling it in the streets of Suffolk County for a price approximately five times that amount once the cocaine was cut and prepared for distribution.”

Robert Perticone, 31, of Deer Park pleaded not guilty at his arraignment last month and was being held on $2 million bail. His attorney, Robert Perini, said Perticone was a master plumber with no prior arrest record.

“It is easy to make these types of allegations; it is much more difficult to prove them,” Perini said.

Richard Occhino, 46, of Deer Park was being held on $5 million bail, and Theodore Katsanos, 29, of Bay Shore was held on $750,000 bail. Attorneys for both men didn’t return calls for comment.

Jose Tejada, 33, of West Babylon was held on $250,000 bond, His attorney, David Smith, declined to comment.

Authorities said they were working with law enforcement officials in California to locate the ringleader, identified as William Wright, 33, of Los Angeles. He will be charged with conspiracy when he’s captured, Spota said.