42-foot boat smuggling 157 kilos of cocaine stopped off Fort Lauderdale, feds say
.jpg "Five men face federal cocaine conspiracy charges following a vessel stop off Fort Lauderdale Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024, by the Coast Guard that turned up 157 kilograms of cocaine, according to court records.")
Five men were arrested after the U.S. Coast Guard stopped a boat off Fort Lauderdale that federal agents say contained 157 kilograms of cocaine on board.
The vessel stop Sunday night triggered a quick investigation that ended with five men in federal custody the following day in an operation that intended to deliver cocaine from the Dominican Republic to Orlando, according to court documents.
The Coast Guard first noticed the 42-foot sportfishermen boat, named Easy Times, heading toward Fort Lauderdale, about two miles off Port Everglades. Shortly thereafter, they determined it was traveling from abroad, according to a criminal complaint filed Wednesday by Homeland Security Investigations agents.
The boat was brought to the Coast Guard station in Fort Lauderdale, where federal agents from U.S. Customs and Border Protection searched it and found the cocaine wrapped in cellophane stashed beneath the floorboard of the hull, according to the complaint.
Two men were on board the vessel — 49-year-old Onasis Lisandro Garcia, and Richard John Sydney-Smith, 62, the complaint states.
After being read his rights, Sydney-Smith told agents that a man in the Dominican Republic organized the voyage, and he put him in contact with Garcia, the complaint states. He said he was paid $3,000 up front and was expecting to be paid another $3,000 t0 $8,000 when he delivered the load to a house located on the Intracoastal Waterway, according to the complaint.
Garcia, after being read his rights, told agents that the cocaine was delivered from another boat at sea off the Bahamas and loaded onto the the Easy Times last Thursday, the complaint states.
According to court documents, the two men cooperated with agents in their investigation into three other men allegedly involved in the smuggling operation.
The next day, with agents listening, they called one of them, Juan Antonio Rivera Velasquez, 45, who was waiting for them to deliver the cocaine to a house located on a canal at the 1100 block of Tangelo Isle in Fort Lauderdale, the complaint states.
They told Rivera Velasquez that the shipment was delayed because the boat had mechanical issues at sea, but that were still on their way, according to the complaint.
What Rivera Velasquez and the other two men didn’t know was that the cocaine that was en route was not the load that was smuggled from the Bahamas. That was confiscated by the feds. Rather, the boat was delivering a shipment of sham drugs, the complaint states
Sydney-Smith and Garcia docked the boat at the house with the bogus contraband stowed aboard and then left. Agents told them to then call Rivera Velasquez and tell them the boat was at the house, but that it was taking on water, according to the complaint.
Rivera Velasquez told Sydney-Smith and Garcia to turn the boats pumps on so it didn’t sink and that he was getting a vehicle to pick up the drugs, the complaint states.
The two men returned to the boat and called Rivera Vasquez that the pumps were fixed. He responded that he wanted to wait until sundown to unload the boat, according to the complaint.
Agents surveilling the area saw Rivera Velasquez in a black Nissan and another of the men, 53-year-old David Martinez — driving a Cadillac — parked and conducting counter surveillance on the house, the complaint states.
Meanwhile, a white van driven by Carlos Manuel Velazquez Gomez pulled up to the house, and he unloaded the bogus cocaine into the vehicle, according to the complaint.
Agents then took Rivera Velasquez, Martinez and Velazquez Gomez into custody.
When agents interviewed Rivera Velasquez, he “made several spontaneous utterances” stating he was responsible for “receiving, transporting and delivering” the cocaine to its final recipient in Orlando, the complaint states.
But Velasquez then told agents he wasn’t willing to say anything else, according to the complaint.
Martinez told agents he met Rivera Velasquez in prison, where he gained his trust “regarding the trafficking of narcotics,” the complaint states.
He told them, according to the complaint, that he agreed to help Rivera Velasquez smuggle the cocaine in exchange for kilos of the load, which he intended to sell himself for about $13,000 each.
Martinez told agents he was aware the cocaine came from the Dominican Republic and that it would arrive by vessel, but that he didn’t know where it was supposed to end up.
Each of the five men face charge of conspiring to possess with the intent to distribute over 150 kilograms of cocaine.
Arthur Wallace, Sydney-Smith’s attorney, told the Herald that his client will plead not guilty when he’s arraigned.
Wallace added that Sydney-Smith “looks forward to having his day in court where and when his side of the case will be fully presented.”
Garcia is being represented by a federal public defender, who did not respond to a request for comment. Roy Jeffrey Kahn, Rivera Velasquez’s attorney, could not be immediately reached.
Martinez did not have an attorney listed on his docket.
