SAN DIEGO --

Video

Cartel Members Caught On Tape

Two men suspected of carrying on a San Diego-based drug-running operation for the Arellano-Felix organization have been caught in an FBI trap, a 10News investigation showed.

Ronnie Walters and his partner Sergio Sandoval were snared as part of a major undercover operation, detailed in undercover video given to 10News.

Walters ran a helicopter company in El Cajon. His bright yellow Huey helicopter, with a smiley face front, was used to smuggle cocaine and marijuana across the border, prosecutors said.

"(That smiley face) it's telling the DEA in Mexico: 'F*** you.' That's what it means," one of Sandoval's alleged lieutenants said, laughing, on undercover video.

Sandoval is a former commander in the Mexican state police, and a man with connections to the very top of the Arellano-Felix drug cartel, FBI agents said.

By day, the Bonita resident distributed Mission tortillas, his night job was smuggling drugs, 10News reported.

The sting operation to catch Walters and Sandoval started years ago at an electronics store in Chula Vista. Privacy Plus Electronics was an FBI front, according to Unit10.

The pay-off came at the Lowes Coronado Bay Resort, where Sandoval met with FBI agents posing as Columbian cocaine smugglers.

"The Arellanos, they are very refined people. Very, very refined. If you'd like, I'll introduce you," Sandoval bragged on an FBI undercover tape. "When I was a commander, I handed over my police career to them."

FBI officials spoke with Sandoval (pictured, right) for four hours at that meeting. The agents told 10News that they were a bit surprised at how forthcoming Sandoval was. For the undercover team, Sandoval was a direct link to the Arellanos -- as close as they had ever come to reaching the top of the organization.

"He discussed in extreme how the Arellanos work," an agent said.

Meanwhile, government agents tailed Walters and found out he was driving a Corvette, owned a big yacht, and was making large bank deposits, despite the fact that his helicopters were down for repairs.

After listening to tapes of meetings in which Sandoval and his cohorts reportedly describe their dope runs, agents decided to set up a sting.

On the appointed day, Walters was in his helicopter, waiting, right next to the San Diego County Sheriff's helipad, in El Cajon. Sandoval was supposed to arrive with the drugs.

The two had planned to lift off with the drugs before 6 a.m., agents said, but at 6:03 a.m. Sandoval still hadn't arrived.

"I'm in it, ready to go and our neighbors are here," Walters (pictured, left) told Sandoval, referring to the arrival of deputies coming to work next door, in a phone conversation taped by FBI agents. "S***. They wouldn't have been here at 6, but it's after 6 ... hurry up."

Ten minutes later, Sandoval still hadn't arrived, so Walters made another call.

WALTERS: "I'm running, and I have a fuel leak!"

SANDOVAL: "I know, I know. I can hear you."

WALTERS "Let's go."

SANDOVAL: "I'm waiting for them, God**** it,"

He was referring to what he would learn, too late, were actually undercover agents.

WALTERS: "Let's go."

SANDOVAL: "I'm waiting for them."

WALTERS: "Then I've got to shut down. I can't continue to run."

Finally, the truck pulled up. In undercover video, the undercover agents loaded a 110-pound box full of powder wrapped up to look like bricks of cocaine onto the Huey.

As soon as it was loaded, Walters pulled up and headed north, staying low as he flew.

"They flew very low just above the tops of the mountains," said federal prosecutor Deborah Rhodes.

Walters and Sandoval carried the box full of white power to a ranch north of the Border Patrol checkpoint on I-15, FBI officials said.

Later that morning, after returning to his hangar, undercover video shows Walters repeatedly turning to look at the helicopter that's been following him. He decided to give Sandoval a call.

WALTERS: "It's Customs.

SANDOVAL: "U.S. Customs?"

WALTERS: "Uh huh."

SANDOVAL: "Is that right? Wow."

FBI agents told 10News that Sandoval then quickly called to make sure that nothing bad had happened to the "cocaine" the two had delivered earlier in the morning. Minutes later, he called Walters back to offer reassurance.

SANDOVAL: "He already got to the freeway and everything.

WALTERS: "Good."

But what the two men didn't know was that the person that took the delivery of the drugs was working with the FBI. For Walters, Sandoval, and a dozen others caught in the sting, it was the end of their operation.