Cocaine smuggler worked with government in exchange for sentence reduction

DEA paid Cruz $347,000 while he was undercover

Javier Cruz is scheduled to plead guilty today in federal court in Roanoke
to some of the charges he faces. A trial for four of his co-defendants
begins Monday.

By JAN VERTEFEUILLE THE ROANOKE TIMES

Javier Cruz, a Roanoke-based cocaine smuggler who went undercover for the
government in exchange for a sentence reduction, also was paid $100,000 a
year by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration during that time.

Cruz is scheduled to plead guilty today in federal court in Roanoke to some
of the charges he faces, and a trial for four of his co-defendants begins
Monday.

The DEA turned over documents to a defense attorney Thursday showing that
from September 1992 to February 1996, the agency paid Cruz $347,000 for
living expenses, rent, employee salaries, fax machines and other costs.

"I think that's a tremendous amount of money for the government to be
spending on an illegal alien who has been in this country dealing drugs for
11 years," said David Walker, a defense attorney representing one of Cruz's
co-defendants.

Cruz moved to Floyd County in 1989 as a fugitive on a first-degree murder
charge in North Carolina and later operated a used-car lot in Roanoke. He
was arrested in 1991 as part of a DEA investigation into cocaine
trafficking.

The murder charge against Cruz was reduced to involuntary manslaughter, and
the DEA arranged for him to be released from the Roanoke County Jail in 1992
so he could return to Colombia. There, he posed as a money launderer to
gather information on drug smugglers.

Cruz returned to Roanoke County and opened a restaurant on Virginia 419 in
January 1995, although he apparently returned to Colombia for part of that
year.

The government said the investigation ended in February 1996, although it
took prosecutors another year to indict everyone involved. Cruz has remained
free since 1992 on unsecured bond. After publicity about the case in late
1996, he moved out of the area.

U.S. Attorney Bob Crouch said the $347,000 was not considered a salary, but
covered "operational and living expenses" for Cruz. The DEA paid his travel
back and forth from Colombia, leased vehicles for him and paid the salaries
for employees he hired in the city of Cali for a phony import-export
business he opened. The business was used to launder money as part of a DEA
sting operation to learn about the Cali cocaine cartel; the DEA helped
traffickers get $47 million in U.S. currency out of the country and into
Colombian bank accounts as part of the investigation.

Crouch said the amount was not excessive, considering that the expenses
cover 3 years and the fact Cruz was "trying to maintain a lifestyle credible
to the type of contacts in the Cali cartel he was making."

Crouch added, "It's the DEA's call how they're going to reimburse their
informants."

He said the $347,000 is the total amount Cruz was paid.

Walker, the co-defendant's defense attorney, asked U.S. District Judge James
Turk at a hearing Thursday to order the DEA to break the expenses down by
category, such as rent, travel and vehicles. Turk told the DEA to turn over
whatever breakdown the agency had for the figures, noting, "That's a large
sum of money."

Turk also said he would consider a request to dismiss the charges against
Walker's client because six years elapsed before he was told he had been
indicted.

Earl Frith, a Floyd real estate broker who sold property to Cruz before the
smuggler was arrested, asked the judge to dismiss the charges before the
trial begins Monday. But Turk said he would take the request under
advisement until after the government finished presenting its case against
him.

"I can see how this lengthy delay would prejudice him," Turk said.

Walker said one of the charges against Frith, involving the way he deposited
payments from Cruz in 1989, is "very technical." He said the defense will be
hindered by the fact that the memory of Frith and other witnesses has faded
and that business records may not have been kept this long.

Frith was interviewed in 1991 by federal agents but did not learn he had
been indicted until early 1997, when the 6-year-old indictment was finally
unsealed. The government says it had to keep the indictment secret because
the investigation was continuing, although other defendants in the case were
told they had been charged and entered plea agreements in 1991.