San Diego

A federal grand jury Tuesday indicted two Chula Vista women and a Tijuana man on felony racketeering charges in connection with a scheme to smuggle a record 1.2-ton cache of cocaine from Mexico into the United States.

Veronica Nava-Moreno, 19, a nursing assistant, and Argentina Armendariz-Rodeles, 20, a housewife, were recruited as couriers to transport about 75 pounds of cocaine through the San Ysidro port of entry, prosecutors allege. Alejandro Huerta-Chavira, a 38-year-old Tijuana resident, worked with the two Chula Vista women in late March and early April to attempt to smuggle the cocaine across the border, the indictment says.

Authorities said the drugs seized from the women April 1 were part of a $331-million cache of high-grade Colombian cocaine confiscated by U.S. and Mexican law enforcement agents.

All three suspects are being held at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in San Diego. If convicted on all six counts of the indictment, they each face a maximum penalty of 90 years in prison and a $1.5-million fine.