Stormy seas, frantic phone calls and heavy-handed tactics from a Tijuana underworld figure named “Candy” highlight an affidavit filed by federal authorities after an attempt to smuggle nearly two tons of marijuana into the U.S. ran aground last week at Leo Carrillo State Beach in Malibu.
Mexican nationals Carlos Millan-Rogel (“Millan”), 26, Jesus Aaron Guevara-Moreno (“Guevara”), 19, and Victor Ayala- Marin (“Ayala”), 19, face criminal trafficking charges and possible deportation after authorities arrested the men following the discovery of 96 bales (3,862 pounds) of marijuana wrapped in plastic bags. The 30-foot smuggler’s vessel known as a panga boat was discovered last Monday, April 7.
Guevara, a native of Culiacan, Sinaloa, told interrogators a smuggler known as Candelario “Candy” Ochoa, of Tijuana, picked him up near Otey Mesa, Mexico, and took him to a boat ramp south of Playas de Tijuana where he witnessed a white van loading the marijuana into the panga.
Millan, of Guerrero, Mexico, and Ayala, of La Plazita de Morelos, Michoacan, arrived later and the three embarked from Rosarito, Mexico, about 10 miles south of the U.S.-Mexico border and roughly 200 miles south of Leo Carrillo at 8 p.m. Ayala told investigators that when he asked Guevara where in the U.S. they were going, Guevera said “Malibu.”
At some point in the night, stormy seas delayed their journey. Instead of arriving between 2 and 3 a.m. as intended, Guevara told interrogators, they landed in Malibu at 5 a.m.
Guevara told authorities he first used a walkie-talkie to contact “Candy,” then met an unknown man walking on the beach who handed him a cellphone and told him that Candy wanted to speak to him.
Guevara claimed that Candy told him to strip down to his running shorts and jog up and down the beach, looking for any sign of police presence. Millan said Guevara later told him “no one was going to pick them up.”
At approximately 9 a.m., Officer Tim Gunther of the California State Parks Department, responding to a report of a panga vessel, encountered Guevara “jogging toward him wearing shorts, a sweatshirt, a ‘beanie’ style hat, and wetsuit booties,’ according to the affidavit. Guevara was holding a cellphone in each hand, and salt crusted his face and eyes, Gunther reported.
After questioning, Guevara was taken into custody at approximately 9:10 a.m. Ayala and Millan were arrested approximately three hours later, at 12 p.m., about 400 yards away from the panga.
Each of the men offered different reasons for going on the journey. Ayala and Millan told authorities they intended to immigrate to the U.S. after the landing. Millan also said he needed the money — he was to be paid $2,000 — to support his family. Ayala, a painter by trade, said he forked over 10,000 pesos to a smuggler named “El Flaco” to book passage on the panga.
Guevara said he was unemployed and that he had worked for Candy before. Candy went to Sinaloa to pick him up for this job, Guevara said, because he was arrested once before and blamed for losing a ton of marijuana belonging to Candy, and that he still owed him for the loss of that boat, according to the affidavit. Guevera said this would be the last time he had to smuggle for Candy and after that they would be even.
The Malibu-Ventura coastline has lately been a frequent target of smugglers from south of the border. In September, 18 people were arrested and 2,000 pounds of marijuana were seized when members of the California National Guard sighted a panga boat off of Arroyo Quernada Beach in Santa Barbara County.
Bundles of marijuana valued at an estimated $4 million washed ashore near Santa Barbara in March 2013, and a 30-foot panga boat with more than a dozen fuel containers was later found nearby.
In December 2012, a U.S. Coast Guardsman was killed after his boat was rammed by a panga boat off Santa Cruz Island. Drugs were later seized from the panga and two men arrested, and the driver of the panga was sentenced to second-degree murder of a federal officer and other charges.
