Pubdate: 3 Mar 1999 Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA) Copyright: 1999 San Francisco Chronicle Contact: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/ Forum: http://www.sfgate.com/conferences/ Author: Bill Wallace Page: A14 FBI SUSPECTS FURNITURE STORE WAS FRONT FOR NARCOTICS RING 17 Arrested In Menlo Park Cocaine Case Seventeen local men have been arrested as alleged members of a Peninsula, drug ring that used a Menlo Park furniture store as a front for trafficking in kilos of high-quality cocaine. Last week, FBI agents with warrants searched the furniture store and a car and residence in East Palo Alto, looking for drugs, paraphernalia and other materials involved the operation of the alleged ring. Investigators seized business records and $7, 800 in cash at the store, as well as telephone bills, drug packaging materials and two baggies containing a substance suspected of being marijuana at the residence. At the same time, arrest warrants were issued for the 17 suspects, all of whom are now in custody and awaiting trial. Some of the suspects, including the operator of the furniture store, Javier Hernandez-Cuellar, are scheduled to appear before federal Magistrate Elizabeth LaPorte tomorrow to ask for release on bail. According to an affidavit filed by FBI Special Agent Scott Smith, the ring has been the subject of a federal probe since August 1996. In his declaration, Smith said a confidential informant working with the FBI contacted Hernandez-Cuellar to discuss buying drugs and met with him at his business, Felix Furniture, on Dec. 8, 1997. At the meeting, which was secretly tape-recorded and watched by FBI agents, the informant allegedly arranged to buy cocaine from the furniture shop owner. The next month, the informant met with Hernandez-Cuellar at the furniture store and allegedly obtained a half-kilo of the drug in exchange for $9,000 supplied by the FBI agents. The cocaine was later tested by a laboratory and proved to be 79 percent pure. A later attempt to buy another half-kilo was unsuccessful, but the informant managed to set up another meeting with Hernandez-Guellar, during which he allegedly bought an additional half-kilo of the drug, which tested 84 percent pure. In connection with the investigation, FBI agents obtained court permission to wiretap the telephones of suspected members of the ring. If convicted of the charges, each of the men could be fined as mucas $4 million and sentenced to life in prison. - --- MAP posted-by: Mike Gogulski