5 From Auto Parts Store on Trial in Drug Cash Plot

The owner and workers at an auto parts store were used by a Colombian drug-money broker to funnel $6 million in cash through Southern California banks and back to South American cocaine dealers, a prosecutor said Thursday.

In opening remarks at the trial of five men charged with conspiring to aid narcotics dealing, Assistant U.S. Atty. Brian Sun said boxes of cash were delivered to the parts store in East Los Angeles and up to $300,000 a day was exchanged for cashier’s checks.

He said the checks were then deposited in bank accounts controlled by the currency broker, who credited the drug traffickers with an equivalent amount of Colombian pesos.

The five defendants were among 10 people originally indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of money laundering--converting illicit cash through financial institutions into funds that appear legitimate.

The money-laundering accusations--making up 19 of the 20 charges in the July, 1985, indictment--were dismissed last month by a federal judge who cited a new appellate decision that laws requiring banks to report large cash transactions do not apply to private citizens.

The principle defendant in the case, William Murcia, 33, of Alhambra, owner of G & W Auto Parts, pleaded guilty shortly before trial and is awaiting sentencing. Two other defendants also pleaded guilty; charges were dismissed against two more.

The defendants remaining in the case, all former employees of the store, are Fred Coca, 53, and Rene Galvez, 31, both of Los Angeles; Arturo Arocha, 35, of Diamond Bar; Francisco Castillo, 31, of West Covina, and Oscar Murcia Jr., of Alexandria, Va.

Sun said the Colombian money dealer, Hector Cuesta Angel, recruited Murcia and his employees in 1984 through another man who wanted to leave the operation.

The prosecutor said one of the defendants who pleaded guilty, Arturo Vigil of Covina, will testify that he saw men carrying boxes of cash into the store that employees took to banks and converted to cashier’s checks.

He said the checks then were deposited into Angel’s accounts at Banco Exterior de Espana, a Spanish-based international bank with offices downtown.

Bank records show that more than $6 million passed through Angel’s accounts during a 12-month period, Sun said, with the money being transferred from the bank to the accounts of drug traffickers in New York, Miami and Connecticut.