Multimillion-Dollar Drug Ring Probe Continues

The FBI and county narcotics officers continued their investigation Friday into the inner workings and money trail of an alleged Escondido-based, family-run drug ring that may have been the county’s largest manufacturer and supplier of methamphetamine.

Officers searched dozens of automobiles and 12 safe deposit boxes that were yielding cash and information on still more bank accounts and investments apparently used to hide the drug money, FBI spokesman Jim Bolenbach said.

“We’re still counting” the cash, Bolenbach said late Friday afternoon. “What we have is a stepping-stone effect--you open up a safe deposit box and discover cash or maybe three more CDs (certificates of deposit) or bank books.”

$2.5 Million Counted So Far

Thus far, authorities have counted $2.5 million in cash from Thursday and Friday, Bolenbach said, adding that one briefcase alone, hidden inside a car at an auto wrecking yard owned by the alleged kingpin, contained more than $30,000.

Most of the defendants in the ring were presented before U.S. Magistrate Roger McKee on Friday and were ordered held without bail at the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown San Diego.

“The court believes if they were let out (on bail), they would boogie,” Bolenbach said.

The alleged manufacturing and distribution organization was busted in raids involving more than 130 officers at nine different homes and businesses in a 10-mile radius around Escondido on Thursday morning. Narcotics and FBI agents arrested 11 area residents, including eight members of the family headed by Donald R. Mason, who owns at least two auto body repair and dismantling yards in Escondido in addition to a towing service under contract with the California Highway Patrol.

600 to 800 Pounds

According to court documents released after the raids, members of the ring, which had been infiltrated by an undercover FBI agent, boasted of manufacturing 600 to 800 pounds of methamphetamine at a time.

The total amount of drugs allegedly manufactured and distributed by the group is not known. The ring had been under investigation for at least six years, but authorities said they had never encountered an operation this big in San Diego County.

Drug agents estimated the value of 800 pounds of the drug--one of the “super batches” allegedly produced by the group--at nearly $50 million.

By comparison, pharmaceutical firms legitimately produced about 600 pounds of the drug worldwide last year, Narcotics Task Force spokesman Ronald S. Garibotto said.

Investigators have yet to uncover the manufacturing lab, and Bolenbach hinted that it might no longer exist. He said the lab may have been dismantled after the arrest six weeks ago of two men in Valley Center who were caught with about 100 pounds of the drug. They were believed to be connected to the alleged Mason operation.

“From the arrest of those two men, you can draw your own conclusions as to what steps a prudent person might take if he realized he might have been identified,” Bolenbach said, adding that he was unable to discuss many details because most of the affidavits connected to the raid are sealed by court order.

Besides Mason, 46, those arrested include his wife, Joyce, 47; his three sons Richard, 23, and Robert, 26, both of Escondido, and Ronald, 25, of Valley Center, and Ronald’s wife, Rebecca, 20.

Also arrested were Joyce Mason’s sons from a previous marriage, Samuel Perez, 20; Richard Perez, 30, and Benjamin Perez, 24, all of Escondido; Jody Jester, 49, of Valley Center, and Salvador Vera, age unknown, who managed one of Mason’s companies.

2 More Being Sought

Two more persons are being sought by the FBI in connection with the case, Bolenbach said.

Authorities contend that Mason’s companies served more as used-car lots than repair lots and that the car sales laundered the drug money. The drug operation, Bolenbach said, not only had connections throughout Southern California but also across state lines.

He said Escondido police and the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department “had been aware of the family’s activities and had been watching for six years. But there’s a big gap between having identified a narcotics trafficker and making your case.”

The Narcotics Task Force sought the FBI’s involvement, and the undercover agent infiltrated the ring more than a year ago, Bolenbach said.

Donald Mason and his wife lived in a modernistic, three-story ridge-top home in the fashionable Coronado Hills neighborhood of southeastern San Marcos. They could view the Pacific Ocean from their front windows and look over Escondido, Lake Hodges and the mountains to the east from their back windows.

Cecil Sharratt, who lives closest to the Masons, said the couple purchased the home and its 2 1/2 acres of hilltop property about six years ago for about $200,000 at a bank foreclosure sale.

‘Reclusive People’

He described the Masons as reclusive people who “never associated with anyone since the day they bought the house.”

Another neighbor, who asked not to be identified, said he had developed an arm’s-length relationship with Mason, who would offer him drives up the steep hill in his maroon Rolls-Royce, one of a handful of vehicles seized Thursday.

“He was a nice guy but kind of a rebel, with that long beard hanging on the steering wheel while he drove,” the neighbor said. “My parents had an inkling that something was going on at their house, and they told me to stay clear.

“There would be convoys of Harley-Davidsons up there at night for an hour or so at a time. There would always be something going on up there, but it was never very loud.”

The neighbor said he figured something had happened to the Masons when, on Thursday morning, “I saw his Rolls being towed away--not by his tow truck company but by someone else’s.”