Record Gang Sweep Leads to 70 Arrests : Crime: ‘Operation Blue Rag’ is one of two in the country in which local, state and federal agencies are working together at the street level.

Seventy people, allegedly members of three Crips gangs that committed drug-related violent crimes throughout San Diego County, are in custody after a nine-month investigation by local, state and federal law enforcement officers, authorities said Friday.

The arrests represent the biggest sweep of gang members in county history, the officials said.

Bail ranges from $20,000 to $100,000 for each of the suspects, who are being held in the Metropolitan Correctional Center and County Jail downtown. They face felony charges of drug dealing, weapons violations and attempted murder.

The suspects will not be released until they can prove that their bail money or other collateral was not obtained illegally, authorities said, adding that about half the suspects are on probation or parole because of prior felony drug or violent-crime convictions.

Last March, the San Diego Police Department and the FBI began “Operation Blue Rag,” named for the clothing that members of the Crips gang wear as their “colors,” Deputy Chief Manny Guaderrama said at a press conference Friday afternoon.

The district attorney’s office then received a $250,000 federal grant to combat street drug trafficking and violent crimes and joined the operation, as did the county Probation Department, the state Department of Justice’s Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement, and the Bureau of Organized Crime and Criminal Intelligence, a special service unit of the state Department of Corrections.

The operation is one of two in the country in which local, state and federal agencies are working together to prosecute street dealers, said Garland Peed, a deputy district attorney in the office’s gang prosecution unit. Kansas City, Mo., received a grant to operate a similar program.

“The investigation focused on hard-core gang members who sell rock cocaine and who are involved in violent, gang-related crime such as assaults with semi- and fully automatic firearms and street robberies,” Chief Deputy Dist. Atty. Brian Michaels said.

Peed said “the higher-ups in the drug chain don’t pull the triggers in drive-by shootings, don’t pull store robberies. The most dangerous creature in America today is the street-level gang dealer in rock cocaine, and these are the people we went after.”

Guaderrama said about 100 undercover drug deals were made during the investigation. Since Wednesday, 50 gang members and their associates had been arrested in a two-day sweep and face drug and violent-crime charges. Twenty other gang members had been arrested before Wednesday, and more are being sought, he said.

Authorities focused on areas where violent crimes occur and where several major dealers operated, Michaels said: 30th Street and Imperial Avenue, 47th and Market streets, and the Linda Vista Recreation Center, where rock cocaine and methamphetamine were sold. There was at least one attempted murder in each of the three areas, he said.