largest drug bust in california

"This monumental seizure represents another win against drug cartels that fuel addiction in the United States," said Shelly S. Howe, DEA Special Agent in Charge, in a statement issued with the U.S. Attorney's press release. 6:23 AM EDT, Sat July 9, 2022. The investigation is continuing.. Were going to reintroduce this law and order and make sure we drive these people out of business and give this community back to the residents.". NBC4s news operation has received nearly every industry award bestowed on local news, including numerous Los Angeles Emmy and Golden Mike Awards, two national and two regional Edward R. Murrow Awards, and a Peabody Award. The fate of NorCal Transportation remains unknown for now, but Cabrera hopes it is shut down. "This record-breaking bust is the largest seizure of fentanyl pills DEA has made in California," the news release said. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, In November, Spitzer warned drug dealers and distributors in the county that they could be charged with murder if their drug activities result in someones death. Sign up for FOX 11s Fast 5 newsletter. The 2,224 pounds (1,008.7 kilograms) of methamphetamine was seized Oct. 2 during an investigation of a drug-trafficking organization with ties to the Sinaloa cartel, the DEA said in a statement. Hazell said the surveillance team obtained a warrant and searched the car, finding 20 kilograms of cocaine in the trunk. More than 200 locations were served with search warrants. If convicted of all charges, both face a maximum sentence of 37 years and 4 months, according to the D.A.s office. Copyright 2023 CBS Interactive Inc. All rights reserved. EAU CLAIRE Wis. (WLAX/WEUX) - A Colfax man is charged with what the West Central Drug Task Force says is one of its largest drug seizures ever. Join half a million readers enjoying Newsweek's free newsletters. July 9, 2021 / 10:14 AM Saying they feared a possible attempt by drug traffickers to recover their contraband by force, Los Angeles police dispatched a SWAT team to the warehouse to provide extra security after the raids. Powered and implemented by FactSet Digital Solutions. The officers who raided the warehouse said that despite the enormous value of the drugs and cash inside, no one had been left to guard the place and the door was secured with a single, $6 padlock. Get your top stories delivered daily! We have teamed up with the @usarmy @deahq @vcsheriff @kernsheriff @seblasd to eradicate these illegal Marijuana groves. 2022 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. Colombian drug cartels used to control cocaine shipments from start to finish, employing their own operatives to move the drug from processing plants in the Colombian jungle across the Caribbean and then into the United States. Investigators saw someone carry out three boxes from the home and put them in a vehicle, according to authorities. CULVER CITY, Calif. (KABC) -- Authorities made one of the largest drug busts in Los Angeles County history recently, seizing meth and cocaine with a street value of nearly $60 million, officials say. Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. Five men at the scene of the raid were taken into department custody who identified themselves as Mexican nationals who just arrived in the U.S. within the last month. Stacked against one wall, in cardboard boxes and black gymnasium bags, was approximately $10 million in cash, most of it in $20 and $100 bills. They worked with authorities in Arizona and it started to grow. They have pleaded not guilty and remain in custody on $5-million bail, the D.A.s office said. "We are not talking about mom and pop people selling marijuana that they grew in their backyard. All rights reserved. Another was arrested at about the same time at the Marriott Hotel in Woodland Hills. In what was described as the largest narcotics haul ever, federal agents seized almost 20 tons of cocaine--worth up to $6 billion on the street--at a San Fernando Valley warehouse, officials said Friday. "This massive seizure likely saved lives and prevented the Sinaloa Cartel from doing business and profiting on the lives of people in our communities.". Authorities seize over 400 pounds of meth, cocaine and heroin in toolboxes at California border crossing. How is that money being used? Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox. They said they were dealing in paintings, velvet paintings, said David Barron, owner of the construction business. Officials say they believe international cartels are behind the illegal large-scale marijuana farms. July 9, 2022 6:45 AM PT. Legal Statement. National correspondent Bill Melugin reports on the major drug raid allegedly tied to Mexican cartels. Lochridge said the suspects, who were not identified, will remain in federal custody over the weekend and probably will be arraigned Monday on state smuggling charges. Monterey County Weekly reported that officials seized 60 pounds of methamphetamine, five pounds of heroin, 1.5 pounds of cocaine, 25,000 fentanyl pills and nine firearms. Authorities made one of the largest methamphetamine busts ever in San Diego County, seizing more than 5,000 pounds of the drug and arresting four Tijuana . All Rights Reserved. The price is going to go up.. "This is enough dope to prove a dose of meth for every man, women and child in the United States and Mexico," DEA Acting Administrator Timothy Shea said. This may be the biggest meth bust in American. Three additional arrests reportedly occurred in Las Vegas Friday. NBC4 produces 43 hours each week of local news and weather, and the station features the largest award-winning investigative unit in Southern California. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. "Because of our great partnerships with other law enforcement agencies, we will continue to disrupt the cartels' flow of drugs into our cities.". NBC4 news is delivered across the main broadcast on channel4, at www.nbcla.com, and through multiple interactive social media platforms 24/7. Contributing to this article were Times staff writers Paul Feldman, Andrea Ford, John Johnson, John Kendall, Patricia Klein Lerner, Amy Pyle and George Ramos in Los Angeles; Douglas Jehl in Washington, and Marjorie Miller in Mexico City. The cocaine, believed destined for Los Angeles, was 90 percent pure and of Colombian origin, said Ted Hunter, special agent with the federal Drug Enforcement . according to the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention. "During the investigations it was determined that NorCal Transportation was directly connected to the Sinaloa Cartel and transporting narcotics in conjunction with Norteno gang leaders," the post continued. July 11, 2022 / 9:03 AM Officials declined to say how many more people they were seeking. "We're talking about the cartels," Lancaster, California, Mayor Rex Parris said at a Wednesday press conference. or redistributed. The department brought in massive bulldozers to raid the scene, completely leveling the illegal grows and there are reportedly hundreds more to tackle. The search resulted in the seizure of 66 kilograms of cocaine and 3,552 pounds of meth from numerous boxes found the home's garage, the DEA said. Charles P. Gutensohn, chief of the Drug Enforcement Administrations cocaine investigations section in Washington, said Friday that the Sylmar drug bust appeared to have uncovered a major hand-off point used by Mexican smugglers to deliver cocaine to Colombian distributors, whose networks extend across the United States. Mike Holm, a DEA agent in Los Angeles, said the SWAT team was called in to guard the warehouse because we had a large amount of money and drugs in there., We know the Colombians have made threats against law enforcement agencies, he said. Angelica Stabile is a lifestyle writer for Fox News Digital. Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. March 4 (UPI) --Australian police on Saturday revealed the details of an operation that intercepted $1 billion worth of cocaine in the country's biggest-ever drug bust. Western Australia Police . All rights reserved. Four men from Tijuana, Mexico, were arrested and charged with conspiracy to distribute the highly addictive drug in what officials described as one of the largest meth busts in San Diego County. The largest previous seizure in the United states came last Nov. 17, when agents recovered about 4.35 tons of the drug in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of California alleges that agents then saw the men removing dozens of cardboard boxes from the truck and into a Dodge van. These middlemen are responsible for moving drugs through Central America and over the Southwest border into the United States. Though it is typically used to treat severe pain, it is also used recreationally. The post stated that there was specific intent to distribute the drugs between Yuma, Arizona and Salinas, California. The one-story warehouse is located in an industrial park in Sylmar, a developing district on the northern edge of Los Angeles. 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They were too well-dressed to operate a warehouse business., Federal agents declined to identify the informant who tipped them, but Curt Hazell, a deputy district attorney in Los Angeles, described him as someone with great instincts for business practices, who knows when he is seeing something about a business like this that is not right.. Four residents of Tijuana, Mexico, face federal drug trafficking charges in connection with a Southern California methamphetamine seizure thatauthorities say was "record-breaking" because of its size. While California legalized therecreational use of marijuana in 2018, illegal grows of the crop have been on the rise in the state. Agents seized more than 4,800 pounds of meth nationwide and are still working on more arrests, according to the DEA. Despite these staggering figures, a law enforcement source in Mexico said the loss of the cash could hurt the drug ring more than the loss of cocaine. The investigation led to search warrants at multiple narcotic stash houses in Moreno Valley and Perris in Riverside County, officials said. Villanueva said that he will share the district attorney's prosecution decision publicly once it's made available. That is what's coming.". Operation Sudden Fall was a 2008 joint operation between the United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and San Diego State University (SDSU) campus police investigating drug abuse in the College Area of San Diego, California.It was the largest campus drug bust in San Diego County history and one of the largest college drug busts in U.S. history. The suspects identified as 37-year-old Rafael Alzua, 41-year-old Galdrino Contreras, 41-year-old Mario Contreras, and 44-year-old Ethgar Velazquez are accused of attempting to transport large quantities of meth after police found them unloading a vehicle filled with the illegal substance on Thursday. Andres Jesus Morales, 30, and Christine Ponce, 27, were charged with four drug-related felonies with the intent to sell a controlled substance, the Riverside . The 20-foot commercial truck, which was carrying 148 meth bundles, crossed the border Thursday through the Otay Mesa Commercial Port of Entry in San Diego, the US Attorneys Office said in a statement. The bundles found in the boxes tested positive for methamphetamine, according to the statement. The largest DEA domestic seizure of methamphetamine in history is a significant blow to the cartels, but more importantly it is a gigantic victory for communities throughout Southern California and the United States who have had to deal with the torrent of methamphetamine coming into their neighborhoods, Shea said. Nearly 375,000 marijuana plants and 33,480 pounds of harvested marijuana were seized, along with 65 vehicles, 180 animals and $28,000. pic.twitter.com/y21yWExTT9. The truck also contained 64 pounds (29 kilograms) of heroin, 29 pounds (13.1 kilograms) of fentanyl powder and almost 37 pounds (16.7 kilograms) of fentanyl pills, the agency said. At the time, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokesperson said it was the second-largest bust ever, behind only a 5,000-pound bust in December 2019 in Laredo, Texas. Atty. Ira Reiner said that when the officers entered the warehouse in Sylmar and shined their flashlights about the room, they couldnt believe their eyes.. CALIFORNIA, USA Federal agents announced what they called the largest methamphetamine bust in U.S. history Wednesday, displaying a 10-foot high pile of the confiscated drug representing a haul . San Diego Roman Catholic diocese facing yet another lawsuit from its insurance company, K-Pop isnt the only hot ticket in Koreatown how trot is captivating immigrants, Los Angeles is suddenly awash in waterfalls, Officials unprepared for epic mountain blizzard, leaving many trapped and desperate, The Week in Photos: California exits pandemic emergency amid a winter landscape. The Sylmar haul--weighing about a much as the trash in two fully laden Department of Sanitation trucks--was roughly four times the total amount of cocaine seized throughout Los Angeles in all of 1988. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department carried out the largest marijuana bust in its history, after seizing more than 33,000 pounds of the drug with a street value of almost $1.2 billion. Copyright 2023 NBCUniversal Media, LLC. A Warner Bros. Also seized were 893 pounds (405 kilograms) of cocaine and 13 pounds (5.9 kilograms) of heroin. One of the largest drug busts in Monterey County, California history was pulled off when nearly $2 million worth of illegal drugs were seized by Salinas police and federal agents, as reported by KSBW Action News. Operation Crystal Shield is a nationwide effort involving 70 to 80 investigators in nine cities including Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix and Atlanta. NORCO, Calif. (KABC) -- More than 3,000 pounds of methamphetamine and 66 kilograms of cocaine were found in a massive drug bust in Norco last month, making it the largest seizure of meth for the Drug Enforcement Administration's Los Angeles Division. More than 3,000 pounds of methamphetamine and 66 kilograms of cocaine were found in a massive drug bust in Norco last month, making it the largest seizure of meth for the DEA's Los Angeles Division. The pair were also charged with two felony enhancements that the controlled substances exceeded 80 kilograms by weight and two felony enhancements that the controlled substances exceeded 20 kilograms by weight or 400 liters by liquid volume. Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger said the impacts of illegal marijuana cultivation by cartels include water theft, human trafficking, pollution and threats to safety and security. 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Mutual Fund and ETF data provided by Refinitiv Lipper. Gutensohn said the traffickers maintain control over profitable distribution routes. A tip from an informant led to a record drug bust. Federal authorities said contents of the seized packages weighed more than 5,000 pounds, an amount they believe constituted at least one of San Diego County's largest methamphetamine busts in history. A record meth bust part of a national operation was announced Wednesday, Oct. 14, 2020. More than 170 law enforcement personnel aided in the search warrants and helped in the apprehension of the suspects. Originally from Miami, she holds a masters degree in journalism from USC. The first man returned to the warehouse, but officers said they stopped the car and arrested the second man, who gave his name, sarcastically, as Ronald Reagan.. Federal authorities on Wednesday showed off results of Southern California raids early this month that led to the biggest domestic seizure of methamphetamine in U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration history. Agents said the front 15 feet or so had been partitioned off as a secret compartment in which cocaine could be hidden from inspectors, making it appear only bric-a-brac was being hauled. "The origins of the sheriffs department date back to 1850 when this was the Wild West," the sheriff said. Monterey County District Attorney Jeannine Pacioni told Newsweek that the investigation is ongoing to ensure everyone involved has been identified. At a small office at the front of the building, agents found records indicating that the drugs had come from the infamous Medellin and Cali cartels in Colombia. L.A. Affairs: My divorce isnt contagious. Detectives from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Narcotic Bureau identified over 500 illegal marijuana cultivations in 2021, increasing from the 150 identified in 2020, according to a June statement. Hayley Smith covers breaking news in California with a focus on wildfires, drought and climate change. They allegedly seized 444 kilograms of cocaine, 157 kilograms of crystal meth, 427 kilograms of marijuana and 300 oxycodone pills. / CBS News. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Edgar Alfonso Lamas, 36, and Carlos Raygozaparedes, 53, were arrested March 17 after Buena Park police officers recovered 20.5 pounds of fentanyl pills from inside a minivan, the Orange County district attorneys office announced Wednesday. A tip from an informant led to a record drug bust. But over the last three weeks, they noticed the cartels really starting to make an increased effort to get drugs across the border. The investigation led to search warrants being served at narcotics stash houses in the Riverside County cities of Moreno Valley and Perris, east of Los Angeles. LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Police and federal agents seized 1,700 pounds of cocaine with an estimated street value of $500 million, three days after a bust netted up to 2,400 pounds of the drug in Tijuana, Mexico, authorities said Saturday. Two Buena Park men are facing felony charges in connection with what prosecutors are calling the largest drug bust in Orange County in 16 years. This is the cartels. Until the seizure in Sylmar, the largest haul occurred on March 10, 1984, when officials seized 11 tons of cocaine in Tranquilandia, Colombia. Updated 09/21/2021, 5:55 p.m. There, amid plastic owls, plaster figurines, pinatas and a painting of Christ walking on the water, were boxes containing thousands of one-kilo packages of cocaine, stacked in piles up to eight feet tall. Todd Spitzer said in a statement about the bust. NORCO, Calif. (KABC) -- More than 3,000 pounds of methamphetamine and 66 kilograms of cocaine were found in a massive drug bust in Norco last month, making it the largest seizure of meth for. Updated Moving swiftly, the investigative team obtained search warrants for the warehouse and for a luxurious penthouse apartment in the 4700 block of Sepulveda Boulevard in Sherman Oaks, but by the time the officers arrived at each location, all the occupants were gone. Quotes displayed in real-time or delayed by at least 15 minutes. Officers also seized 821 pounds of methamphetamine and 189.7 pounds of cocaine after pulling over the minivan leaving a Buena Park home. Hazell theorized Friday that when the car was stopped, an alert probably went through the system, and they left. He said the suspects all carried beepers and they all moved on a tight, rigidly controlled schedule.

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largest drug bust in california

largest drug bust in california