DRUG BUST NETS $10M IN COCAINE

Officers Say The Men Took Undercover Agents From A Boardman Motel To
The Cocaine.

YOUNGSTOWN - Three Illinois men and a California man are in Mahoning
County jail on charges stemming from what is believed to be the
second-largest undercover cocaine bust in Mahoning Valley history.

The haul involved about 88 pounds of cocaine with an estimated street
value of between $10 million and $12 million, authorities said.

Armando Martinez-Fragoso, 42, of Cocina, Calif.; Rafael Nunez, 50, of
Palos Park, Ill.; and Luis Burciaga-Acosta, 33, and David Lopez, 41,
both of Chicago, made an initial appearance Wednesday morning in U.S.
District Court in Youngstown. They are each charged with federal
possession with intent to distribute cocaine, and conspiracy to
possess with intent to distribute cocaine.

Nunez also is charged with federal possession of a firearm during the
commission of a drug offense.

Bond and probable cause hearings for the four are expected in the
coming days.

Seized near truck stop

The men were arrested after the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration
Task Force and Austintown police made the seizure early Tuesday from a
tractor-trailer parked on Seventy-Six Drive across from a truck stop
in Austintown.

Douglas Lamplugh, agent in charge of the DEA's Youngstown office, said
it was the second-largest drug bust made as a result of an undercover
operation in the Mahoning Valley.

The largest bust stemming from an undercover investigation in the
Valley occurred in April, when law enforcement officers confiscated
264 pounds of cocaine in Liberty and Austintown and arrested 10 men
and two women, many from Chicago. Lamplugh said law enforcement
officers don't know of any direct ties between those arrested in April
and those arrested Tuesday.

Ronald Bakeman of the U.S. Attorney General's office in Cleveland
noted that the 88 pounds of cocaine confiscated Tuesday was considered
an "extremely substantial" amount for an undercover bust in Ohio.

The bust resulted from a two-month investigation.

What happened

Lamplugh said undercover law enforcement officers met with the four at
a Boardman motel about 4:40 a.m. Tuesday and then drove with
Martinez-Fragoso, Nunez and Lopez to the tractor-trailer in
Austintown. Martinez-Fragoso, Nunez and Lopez were arrested when they
gave the cocaine to the agents, Lamplugh said.

The agents later returned to the motel and arrested Burciaga-Acosta
and searched his room. Lamplugh would not name the motel.