N.Y. drug dealer admits Phila heroin deal

A suspected New York drug dealer linked to one of the biggest heroin seizures in the history of Philadelphia pleaded guilty yesterday to federal narcotics-trafficking charges.

Richard Estrada, 41, entered the plea during a brief hearing before U.S. District Court Judge Anita Brody, admitting his role in a plan to bring 121/2 pounds of heroin through the port of Philadelphia.

Estrada, through his lawyer, denied the government allegation that he was a leader of the conspiracy, however.

He faces from 10 years to life in prison when he is sentenced on Nov. 13.

The drug-smuggling operation, which began in a South American seaport, came undone in a South Philadelphia parking lot on Nov. 5.

That night, three crewmen from the Cap San Lorenzo, a cargo container docked at Packer Marine Terminal, were arrested as they walked around the parking lot of the Home Depot/Wal-Mart shopping center off Columbus Boulevard with the heroin hidden in their shorts and boots.

The drugs, with an estimated street value of $3.5 million, were seized by agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement who arrested the crewmen and two alleged couriers sent from New York to pick up the drugs.

The crewmen, from the Pacific Island nation of Kiribati, immediately began cooperating with authorities. All three have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing.

Estrada's sister and brother-in-law, described as the couriers, also have been charged. They are awaiting trial.

Estrada, a Colombian living in the Jackson Heights section of Queens, New York, has been held without bail since his arrest on Nov. 7.

He appeared in court in a green prison jumpsuit yesterday and, through an interpreter, answered "yes" and "no" to a series of questions posed by Brody.

He then pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute more than a kilogram of heroin and to attempting to possess more than a kilogram with the intent to distribute it.

Investigators have alleged that Estrada was a New York connection for a Colombian heroin-distribution network. According to investigative files that are part of the case, one of the crewmen was approached by a Colombian named Tony while the Cap San Lorenzo was docked in Puerto Cabello, Venezuela, one of a dozen seaports along the vessel's East Coast trading route, which included stops in Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and the United States.

The crewman has told authorities he was offered $20,000 - more than a year's salary - to deliver the heroin to a contact in Philadelphia. He said he recruited two fellow crewmen to help him bring the drugs ashore.

The drugs were sewn into shorts and hidden in boots worn by the crewmen when they were arrested, according to an outline of the case presented during yesterday's hearing by Assistant U.S. Attorney Karen L. Grigsby.

The heroin seized was the second-largest single seizure by law enforcement in Philadelphia. In 1990, 17 pounds of heroin were taken from a drug courier during a search of a train stopped at 30th Street Station.