SPPD: Auction of drug dealers SB home could bring financial shot in the arm

January 28, 2000
Santa Paula Police Department
A high-flying cocaine dealer’s career came to an end at Santa Paula Airport when his plane - low on gas - was forced to land, and an auction this week of his home could mean a financial shot in the arm for the Santa Paula Police Department, the lead agency in the arrest of the dealer. The five-bedroom Santa Barbara home of Daniel Wesley Allen, 53, offers an ocean view from its three hillside acres and features two wraparound decks, a custom kitchen, guest house and plenty of other features that should bring about $800,000 in an auction planned for Friday, January 28th.Allen won’t be needing the home as he has moved to the prison where he was sentenced to for 17 years on drug smuggling charges. . .when he landed at Santa Paula Airport on Aug. 12, 1998 his Cessna 320 was found to hold almost 600 pounds of the pure cocaine he had flown over the border from Mexico. When he had crossed the border a tracking device installed by U.S. Customs agents had led to an air chase to San Luis Obispo County where Allen turned around. . .low on fuel, he landed in Santa Paula and was quickly surrounded and arrested by members of the SPPD including K-9 teams.The cocaine in the plane had a street value of almost $50 million; Allen later confessed that he had been running drugs for almost a decade, making four “air runs” a year. . .his income from drug running was estimated at about $1 million annually.Allen’s lavish lifestyle not only was interrupted by his conviction. . .all of his possessions were seized by the federal government. The SPPD is one of the four law enforcement agencies that will split the proceeds from the home auction.
“The actual auction will probably take only ten minutes. . .all we care about is what the bottom line is,” said Commander Mark Hanson of the SPPD, one of several city law enforcement officials who toured the house on Jan. 25th. “There’s a big master plan on distribution of his assets and four different agencies involved. . .first off, we don’t know how much our share is going to be, but the good news is the money has to be used for law enforcement.”Commander Hanson added that the sale of Allen’s assets “went quicker than usual. . .the average is 2.1 years from the time of seizure to the time of sale and this went much quicker. But we’re not sure how long it will be before the distribution is decided and the checks are cut.”



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