MONEY LURED CRUISE WORKER TO DON DRUG-STUFFED SHOES

Wearing some of Central Florida's most valuable sneakers will cost
Otto Cabrera-Palma up to 40 years in prison.

The former Carnival Cruise Lines mechanic pleaded guilty Tuesday in
federal court in Orlando to trying to walk through customs on soles
packed with $20,000 worth of cocaine.

"That is accurate," Cabrera-Palma, 42, told U.S. Magistrate David A.
Baker, giving details of his arrest last April when the Carnival Glory
cruise ship docked in Port Canaveral.

The case is the sixth or seventh smuggling investigation involving
cruise-ship workers in Port Canaveral since 2000, according to the
federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Cocoa Beach.

In this and previous cases, ICE agents say the arrested crew members
have been low-paid foreign nationals who were recruited by drug
smugglers at Caribbean ports of call.

Cabrera-Palma, who is a Honduran national, testified Tuesday that he
was contacted last spring when the 2,974-passenger Carnival Glory
visited St. Maarten in the Netherlands Antilles. He said he and Rosel
Campigott-Lopez, another of the ship's 1,150 crew members, had been
bar-hopping ashore when a taxi driver asked if they wanted to make a
lot of money.

They and a third crew member agreed to wear drug-packed sneakers back
to Florida for $5,000 apiece, records show. But the third crew member,
who was not identified in court records, alerted ICE about the plan.

The sneakers seized April 24 from the feet of Cabrera-Palma and
Campigott-Lopez contained a total of about 41/2 pounds of cocaine in
their hollow rubber soles. The drug sells for about $10,000 a pound in
Central Florida.

Court records did not indicate how much cocaine was in the informant's
sneakers.

After being taken into custody, the cruise workers directed ICE agents
to a Wal-Mart on Merritt Island. There, three agents working
undercover met Clive Arthur George Williams, who bought them new
sneakers and gave them $13,500 for the cocaine-filled shoes, records
show.

An organizer of the scheme, prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney
Vincent A. Citro, escaped arrest. The unidentified man provided the
conspirators with a cellular telephone number to contact him. The pre-
paid cell phone was bought by someone who gave a false name and
Orlando address and then made numerous calls to Jamaica and St.
Maartens, according to court records.

Cabrera-Palma, Campigott-Lopez and Williams, who have all pleaded
guilty, each face up to 40 years in prison when they are sentenced
later this year for conspiring to smuggle 500 grams of cocaine.