$1 MILLION MANSION SEIZED FROM CONVICTED COCAINE SMUGGLER FOR SALE SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (AP) - Daniel Wesley Allen's $1 million oceanview home is up for auction, but Allen won't get a dime of the sale since he's serving a 17-year federal prison sentence for drug smuggling. U.S. Department of Treasury officials seized the five-bedroom 3,352-square-foot hilltop mansion and guest house soon after Allen's arrest August 1998. Low on fuel after trying to elude authorities, Allen was forced to land his airplane at Santa Paula Airport. U.S. Customs agents said they found 600 pounds of cocaine aboard with a street value of $50 million. Allen's electric-fenced home ended up forfeited to the government because $600,000 in illegal income was used to buy the mansion in 1997. The 3-acre estate, was displayed to reporters and prospective buyers Tuesday. It will be auctioned Friday, with a top bid of up to $1 million expected. U.S. Customs Senior Special Agent Robert Czyrklis, who investigated Allen's case, said the home wasn't the only profit of Allen's illegal lifestyle. He often had $300 dinners and flew only four days a year, making $250,000 for each round-trip flight. He and his girfriend had three large sport utility vehicles, two Mercedes-Benzes and two airplanes. They also took vacations and boat cruises. Allen would get a call every few months telling him to fly from Santa Ynez, north of Santa Barbara, to a remote location in Mexico about 100 miles south of the border, Czyrklis said. In Mexico he would pick up a large shipment of cocaine or marijuana, fly back to Santa Ynez, load the drugs in his truck and take the drugs home. A few days later he would be told where to deliver the goods, sometimes in Los Angeles, other times in Camarillo. Czyrklis said Allen, now 53, began smuggling drugs about 20 years ago in Tucson, Ariz. Ten years later, he moved to San Francisco, where he spent about five years before settling in Santa Barbara. After a year of investigating Allen, agents obtained a court order in mid-1998 to enter his Santa Ynez hangar and install a tracking device on his plane.
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