OFFICIALS SAY FANCY CARS FOIL A DRUG-SMUGGLING SUSPECT

Angelo Bermudez ran an auto body shop in the Bronx and owned a prizewinning
collection of antique cars. They included a 1959 Chevrolet Impala, a 1956
Bel Air wagon and a candy-apple-red 1962 Corvette convertible, as well as a
turquoise 1954 Ford truck and a 1957 Volkswagen Beetle.

He also operated a multimillion-dollar drug-smuggling operation, law
enforcement officials say, moving a ton of cocaine and almost as much
marijuana in the last two years.

Last Friday, the officials say, the combination of drugs and fancy cars was
the undoing of Mr. Bermudez, 35, when he put his cars up as collateral for
a $1.25 million shipment of cocaine. Mr. Bermudez was arrested that day on
a street corner in Inwood near a parking lot where his cars were delivered
by flatbed truck to be held as security on 50 kilograms of cocaine, said
Anthony Placido, the special agent in charge of the New York office of the
federal Drug Enforcement Administration.

Speaking at a news conference yesterday to announce the arrest, Mr. Placido
said Mr. Bermudez ran a huge operation that bought drugs from cartels in
Mexico and Colombia, trucked it across the Mexican border to the Northeast
and distributed it to dealers in New York and Boston. "This was an
organization that was moving multiton levels of cocaine with $8 million in
assets," Mr. Placido said.

In the last two years, federal, state and local law enforcement officials
seized large shipments of drugs from trucks they thought belonged to Mr.
Bermudez's operation. Investigators said the shipments originated in
Sonora, Mexico, and were sent north in tractor-trailer trucks holding drugs
in secret compartments and carrying fruit, and other legal imports. The
operation later used sport utility vehicles, investigators said.

Though they arrested several of Mr. Bermudez's associates, investigators
had been unable to connect him directly to the drugs, said Bridget G.
Brennan, the city's special prosecutor for narcotics. But Mr. Bermudez was
on hand when his cars were delivered, Ms. Brennan said, enabling agents to
arrest him.

Mr. Bermudez and three associates were being held yesterday without bail at
Rikers Island awaiting indictment.