Costa Mesa : Four Men Arrested in Undercover Drug Probe

Four men were arrested Monday after an undercover narcotics investigation that began in Montebello ended near the South Coast Plaza parking lot in Costa Mesa, police said.

Javier Luis Arias, 34; Florencio de la Vega, 49, and William Javier Gonzalez, 37, were arrested by Montebello police officers and Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies early Monday afternoon in the operation in which details are still sketchy, said Costa Mesa Lt. David Brooks, who did not know the identity of the fourth suspect.

Two of the men were arrested in the shopping center parking lot. Two others fled in a car and were chased by unmarked police cars to a nearby liquor store. At the store, the suspects’ car crashed into another automobile. One suspect was arrested immediately after the crash, and the second hid in the yard of a nearby house where Costa Mesa police officers captured him, Brooks said.

All four men were arrested on drug-related charges, although Brooks could not explain the extent of the charges. The men are being held in Costa Mesa Jail. Spokesmen from the Montebello Police Department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said they are still investigating the incident.