A Filipino man is facing federal charges in Los Angeles for allegedly smuggling 500 pounds of cocaine on an oil tanker from Ecuador — narcotics that were intended for a Mexican drug cartel, officials said on Friday, May 22.
The 43-year-old Philippines resident was arrested Thursday, May 21, after law enforcement directed the ship to anchor at the Los Angeles-Long Beach port area, where officials boarded the tanker, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
According to an affidavit, law enforcement was notified earlier this month that the Greek-owned and Liberian-flagged oil tanker Aquatravesia, whose last port of call was Ecuador, was inbound to the United States carrying a large quantity of drugs intended to be delivered to a Mexican cartel.
During the voyage, according to the DOJ, crew members discovered numerous packages hidden inside the ship’s garbage room that contained suspected narcotics. Once the ship’s captain discovered that suspect possessed the drugs, he secured the narcotics in a different room inside the tanker, federal prosecutors said.
Law enforcement learned that the suspect possessed the cocaine inside the ship, had received the drugs in Ecuador, and intended to distribute them to another party while the boat was traveling past Mexico.
The captain was informed that while the Aquatravesia was in Mexican waters, small naval crafts with armed cartel members would be waiting 80 nautical miles from the shore. If the drugs were not delivered, additional crafts would be waiting in Mexican waters to board the oil tanker and recover the contraband, according to the complaint filed Friday, May 22, in L.A. federal court.
The captain also reported receiving what he believed were radio calls from the cartel attempting to hail the Aquatravesia prior to a boarding or takeover.
If convicted of the single charged count of importation of a controlled substance, the suspect would face 10 years to life in federal prison, prosecutors noted.