6 Arrested in Large Regional Drug Bust

In one of Ventura County’s largest drug busts ever, sheriff’s deputies said they broke a Mexican distribution ring that had sold up to 10 kilograms of cocaine here weekly for the past seven years.

Undercover deputies, Simi Valley police and an FBI agent burst into a Van Nuys apartment with a warrant Tuesday evening just as a cocaine delivery was taking place, Sheriff’s Sgt. Gary Pentis said.

The officers arrested four Mexican citizens there and seized a toolbox packed with three kilograms of cocaine, he said. Earlier they also arrested another Mexican man and a Woodland Hills woman in connection with the alleged drug dealing.

For years, the group had moved Colombian cocaine through the Sinaloa and Michoacan provinces in Mexico, supplying dealers in Los Angeles and Ventura counties, Pentis said.

“They’re wholesale distributors,” Pentis said Wednesday. “They don’t mess with anything less than kilo amounts. They’re pretty organized.”

By Feb. 2, undercover agents had clambered up the distribution chain from small-time street dealers in Ventura County to 44-year-old Deborah Clanton of Woodland Hills, Pentis said. After she sold them half a pound of cocaine, he said, they arrested her on suspicion of selling and conspiring to distribute the drug.

Police said they learned that Clanton’s supplier was Valinta Rodriguez, 36, a Mexican man living in Reseda. Detectives arrested him on the same charges, Pentis said.

Posing as big-time dealers interested in selling cocaine in Ventura County, undercover officers then negotiated to buy three kilograms from Rosa Gutierrez, 37, and Jose Salas, 41, Pentis said.

Tuesday at about 5:30 p.m., two men arrived at Gutierrez’s apartment in the 6900 block of Kester Avenue in Van Nuys, Pentis said. When one signaled all was clear, the other furtively carried a yellow toolbox inside, he said.

Moments later seven deputies raided the apartment, Pentis said. They arrested Gutierrez, Salas and the new arrivals, Raul Cota, 28, and Fabian Ortega, 24, both of Pacoima, on suspicion of selling and conspiring to distribute cocaine.

Those four were being held Wednesday in Ventura County Jail in lieu of $500,000 bail each.

Rodriguez was being held in lieu of $30,000 bail, while Clanton was released after posting $20,000 bond, officials said.