2 Arrested in Drug Smuggling Case

MUSKOGEE, Okla. — Federal agents have arrested two of three men allegedly responsible for using Mexican tour buses to smuggle thousands of kilograms of cocaine into Southern California.

The government also is investigating whether the drug operation was responsible for the shooting death of a part-time car salesman in Oklahoma and the deaths of three others in California.

The organization, which had been operating for 10 years, distributed cocaine throughout the East and West coast, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Muskogee.

On Monday, Carlos Reyes Mendoza of Mexico was arrested in San Diego and James Norwood Hutching of Haskell, Okla., was arrested while baling hay in northeastern Oklahoma.

Prosecutors allege Joseph Edward Arvizu of Fontana, Calif., is the leader of the operation that imported cocaine on buses called “Sultana Tours,” run by Mendoza.

After a $2-million shipment destined for Muskogee was stolen, the government claims Arvizu and others came to Oklahoma to kill the person responsible.

Prosecutors claim car salesman Jewell Leon Collins was killed in a case of mistaken identity. Collins was shot in the head in June, 1991, while taking a customer on a test drive.

Arvizu’s organization is also suspected in the October death of Guillermo Castaneda, and the January deaths of Mitch McDowell, a bail bondsman in San Bernardino, and his nephew, Aliki Davis, the government said.

It alleges Arvizu ordered McDowell and Davis be killed because he thought they were informants.

Prosecutors allege Arvizu operated from a front company called Morris Transportation in Fontana. Some Morris property in Oklahoma was used to store, hide and repair Morris vehicles.

The government said lawmen seized 1,843 kilograms of cocaine after following trucks that left a Morris warehouse in California in July and August, 1991, and seized 2,298 kilograms of cocaine from Fontana Motor Sales, purportedly controlled by the Arvizu group, in October.