Before adolescence, Alfred started missing school to help him pour concrete at shopping arcades. He was, after all, just an installer.Īnaya idolised his father, Gabriel, a hard-working cement mason who had emigrated from Mexico. He assumed that he was immune from legal trouble. He hadn't totally forgiven his visitor for failing to warn him about the money in the trap, but he figured he was still adhering to the letter of the law. Anaya, in debt to numerous creditors, accepted the job. Magallon-Maldanado wanted an electronic trap, like the F-150's, and he offered to leave a deposit so Anaya could buy the necessary hydraulics. It already had one, but it was the work of an amateur - a crude hole sawn into the base of the boot. A grateful Magallon-Maldanado then asked him if he could install a trap in the Ridgeline too. Magallon-Maldanado and Bonilla-Montiel, key players in a smuggling ring sending large quantities of cocaine and methamphetamine to the Midwest, wanted to use his services again.Īnaya, now feeling calmer, agreed to fix the F-150's trap for $1,500 (£970) - a third of what he had originally charged to install it. The word in the underworld was that no one built more elegant traps than Anaya, whose hiding spots were invisible even to the experts. To distribute product, dealers need vehicles with well-disguised traps. They wanted to stay in Anaya's good books - his skills were very valuable. "I don't want any problems."Įsteban Magallon-Maldanado and Cesar Bonilla-Montiel transferred armfuls of money from the F-150 to the Ridgeline's boot. "Get it out of here," he said to Esteban. He heard the hydraulics whirr to life, but the seat stayed firmly in place.Įsteban had jammed the trap by stuffing it with too much money - over $800,000 (£550,000).Īnaya stumbled from the cab, livid. The 37-year-old Anaya, a handsome man whose neck and arms are covered with tattoos of dice and Japanese art, tested the switches. A friend of Esteban, who introduced himself as Cesar, followed in a black Honda Ridgeline truck.
Esteban assured him he needn't worry and drove the F-150 to Anaya's modest ranch-style house. "There's nothing in there I shouldn't know about, is there?" he asked. So Anaya thought it wise to deviate from his standard no-questions-asked policy before agreeing to honour his warranty. The maximum penalty is three years in prison. But the activity runs foul of California law if an installer knows for certain the compartment will be used to transport drugs. There is nothing intrinsically illegal about building traps, which are commonly used to hide everything from pricey jewellery to legal handguns. Esteban said the seat was no longer responding to the switch combination.
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