Westminster : Undercover Drug Probe Results in 5 Arrests

After a monthlong undercover investigation, police arrested five people on suspicion of selling cocaine and conspiring to sell cocaine. They also confiscated 13 pounds of the drug and three guns.

The investigation, led by Garden Grove police, was centered at an apartment on Natal Drive, where a resident allegedly showed an undercover officer six kilograms, or slightly more than 13 pounds, of cocaine on Thursday, police said.

Three men who had been seen with walkie-talkies meeting near Golden West Street and Fenway Drive in Westminster also were arrested, said Garden Grove Police Sgt. Gary Walker.

The four were booked into Orange County Jail. Walker identified them as: Derek Wayne Hughes, 32, of Westminster; Robert Martin Davis, 29, of Oxnard; Kurt Patyk Thode, 29, of Lakewood and Ronald Phillip Fredricks, 26, of Bellflower.

Thode and Fredricks were arrested in a car near Natal and Cedar, a block from Hughes’ apartment. Thode had a loaded, .45-caliber automatic pistol between his legs, Walker said, and Fredricks had a loaded, .38-caliber revolver next to him. A shotgun was found between them.

A fifth person, 29-year-old Crystal Fern Ayers of Huntington Beach, was arrested when she arrived at the Natal Street apartment, Walker said. She also was booked into the Orange County Jail.

Police estimated the cocaine’s street value at $2 million, Walker said. The investigation involved officers from Anaheim and Cypress, as well as Garden Grove and Westminster, he said.