MONEY LURED CRUISE WORKER TO DON DRUG-STUFFED SHOES

Wearing some of Central Florida's most valuable sneakers will cost Otto Cabrera-Palma up to 40 years in prison.

The former Carnival Cruise Lines mechanic pleaded guilty Tuesday in federal court in Orlando to trying to walk through customs on soles packed with $20,000 worth of cocaine.

"That is accurate," Cabrera-Palma, 42, told U.S.  Magistrate David A.  Baker, giving details of his arrest last April when the Carnival Glory cruise ship docked in Port Canaveral.

The case is the sixth or seventh smuggling investigation involving cruise-ship workers in Port Canaveral since 2000, according to the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Cocoa Beach.

In this and previous cases, ICE agents say the arrested crew members have been low-paid foreign nationals who were recruited by drug smugglers at Caribbean ports of call.

Cabrera-Palma, who is a Honduran national, testified Tuesday that he was contacted last spring when the 2,974-passenger Carnival Glory visited St.  Maarten in the Netherlands Antilles.  He said he and Rosel Campigott-Lopez, another of the ship's 1,150 crew members, had been bar-hopping ashore when a taxi driver asked if they wanted to make a lot of money.

They and a third crew member agreed to wear drug-packed sneakers back to Florida for $5,000 apiece, records show.  But the third crew member, who was not identified in court records, alerted ICE about the plan.

The sneakers seized April 24 from the feet of Cabrera-Palma and Campigott-Lopez contained a total of about 41/2 pounds of cocaine in their hollow rubber soles.  The drug sells for about $10,000 a pound in Central Florida.

Court records did not indicate how much cocaine was in the informant's sneakers.

After being taken into custody, the cruise workers directed ICE agents to a Wal-Mart on Merritt Island.  There, three agents working undercover met Clive Arthur George Williams, who bought them new sneakers and gave them $13,500 for the cocaine-filled shoes, records show.

An organizer of the scheme, prosecuted by Assistant U.S.  Attorney Vincent A.  Citro, escaped arrest.  The unidentified man provided the conspirators with a cellular telephone number to contact him.  The pre- paid cell phone was bought by someone who gave a false name and Orlando address and then made numerous calls to Jamaica and St.  Maartens, according to court records.

Cabrera-Palma, Campigott-Lopez and Williams, who have all pleaded guilty, each face up to 40 years in prison when they are sentenced later this year for conspiring to smuggle 500 grams of cocaine.