130 Seized in Truck Stop Crackdown on Narcotics

Atty. Gen. John K. Van de Kamp on Tuesday announced the arrests of 130 people, including big rig drivers, during a six-month undercover investigation of drug dealing at truck stops from Bakersfield to Redding.

In order to make the arrests, usually at truck stops, Van de Kamp said undercover officers posing as drivers of an 18-wheel truck and trailer eavesdropped on the citizens band radio negotiations between truckers and highway drug dealers.

“From one end of the Central Valley to the other, dealers brazenly advertised their wares on citizens band radio to truck drivers passing the drug bazaars set up at roadside truck stops,” he said. “Sometimes the trafficking over CB radios was so fast and furious that by the time agents could cut in to try to negotiate a purchase, the drugs already had been sold.”

Expanded Effort Promised

Van de Kamp promised an expanded crackdown against drug trafficking by persons involved in the trucking industry, asserting that the Central Valley arrests constituted “only a tiny fraction” of what law enforcement officials suspect may be occurring statewide.

Citing the obvious safety threat to motorists of truck drivers under the influence of drugs, Van de Kamp told a press conference that the “situation is intolerable and we will not allow it to continue. This will be just the first of many operations to clean up the state’s highways.

“Anyone who has ever had a semi bearing down from behind at 70 m.p.h. can only be terrified by the results of this (drug-busting) operation.”

The California Trucking Assn., which represents 2,500 truck companies, applauded the investigation, declaring that “we have been aware of the problem for quite a while and are in support of the attorney general and the Highway Patrol getting the bad apples off the road.”

The Teamsters Union issued a statement describing the results of the investigation as “disturbing” and asserted that “it is but another indication to us of the impact of economic deregulation of trucking across the country and the widespread abuse of drugs in almost every industry in America.”

As for extending the operation into Southern California below the Tehachapis, Van de Kamp said investigators have received “some information that will be pursued” but no arrests have occurred.

Van de Kamp held the press conference near a busy truck stop alongside Interstate 80 west of Sacramento. For reporters, he played a law enforcement tape recording of obscenity-larded drug negotiations between dealers and truckers.

The six-month operation involved undercover officers of the state Department of Justice, California Highway Patrol and local police and sheriff’s departments along Interstate 5, California 99 and Interstate 80.

Government agencies do not keep separate figures on drug-related crashes involving big trucks. However, the Highway Patrol in 1986, the last full year for which figures are available, reported 697 truck driver arrests for being under the influence.

During the same year, of 190 fatal crashes where a trucker was found to be at fault, 27 involved drivers under the influence of alcohol or drugs or both, reported CHP Deputy Commissioner Maury Hannigan.

Of the 130 drug arrests from June 29 to Jan. 16, 26 were truckers, Van de Kamp said. Others included truck stop employees and what he described as “friends and associates” of the trucking industry.

He said methamphetamines (known as crank or speed) led the list of undercover purchases, followed by cocaine and marijuana. On the street, the total amount of drugs involved in the busts would sell for about $18,000.

As a result of the arrests, Van de Kamp said, officers seized explosives, guns, $160,000 in cash and assets worth more than $110,000, including a 26-foot cabin cruiser, a Corvette, a Porsche and a Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

The Highway Patrol’s Hannigan, who attended the press conference, said professional truck drivers “provided the impetus for the investigation.”

Late in 1986, he said, the patrol asked some truckers in Northern California what they believed was the cause of a soaring rate of truck accidents. “(We) got something of a surprise when they identified drugs as a potential contributor,” he said.

In response to a question, Van de Kamp conceded that drug dealers were advertising far and wide over CB radios and “it was going on right under our noses. It was time to do something about, and we did it.”

Sheriff Glen Craig of Sacramento County, whose officers participated in the operation, told reporters that prostitutes who hang around truck stops were also peddling drugs.

The following is an excerpt of a taped conversation between a drug dealer and a law enforcement officer posing as a truck driver. Expletives have been deleted:

Dealer: . . . If somebody is interested, talk to me. If somebody is playing games, I don’t need no . . . games. I don’t give no freebies out. I need $50 for a gram. If somebody interested, he better talk to me.

Trucker: I’ve been talking to you, man, but you just don’t want to . . . listen. C’mon. I’ve got my . . . headlights on just like you said and you just . . . ignored me. C’mon.

Dealer: OK, I’ll talk to you. I’m sorry. Where you at?