7 Men Arrested in Raid on Rural ‘Speed Kitchen’

In a nondescript aluminum barn on a lonely rural road, state and Ventura County narcotics investigators Tuesday uncovered a large “speed kitchen” and confiscated more than 40 pounds of methamphetamine.

In the predawn raid, authorities arrested seven men, all of them Mexican citizens who police believe are working with a Los Angeles County drug ring.

Agents from the California Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement working with members of VexNet--the Ventura/Oxnard police Narcotics Task Force--tracked the suspects and converged on the farmhouse, said Gregg McClung, a supervising special agent with the state’s narcotics team.

During an investigation that started in Los Angeles County, drug agents began to follow a group of men who had accumulated supplies used to make the drug.

The agents shadowed the men Monday, following them to a farmhouse near the intersection of California 118 and Santa Clara Ave, McClung said.

That is when the state investigators contacted local police, said Sgt. Steve Blanchard, an Oxnard police officer who works with the VexNet team. Ventura County sheriff’s deputies also participated in the raid.

The local team helped the state narcotics agents set up surveillance, watching the house and waiting to see what happened.

“They were cooking this stuff up all night,” McClung said. Just before dawn the men started to get into their cars, and that is when the investigators swarmed onto the ranch, authorities said.

Police found the methamphetamine--also known as speed or crank--packed into a cooler in one of the cars, authorities said. The drug sells for about $100 a gram on the street, agents said, estimating that the cache would have been worth about $1.8 million to dealers.

It’s not the largest lab found in the county, but a significant bust nonetheless, McClung said. A year ago drug agents found a speed kitchen in an orchard along Balcom Canyon Road that they believed was capable of making 400 pounds of the drug, although they recovered only a trace of methamphetamine during the raid.

Authorities believe the drug ring is taking advantage of the vast open spaces of Ventura County, renting out rural properties or occupying orchards to hide speed kitchens, McClung said. Mexican drug rings have used the back country to grow fields of marijuana, several of which were discovered last year.

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When authorities raided the ranch house, investigators picked up the distinctive fluoride-like chemical odor of the drug emanating from a car, McClung said.

“You couldn’t mistake the smell,” he said.

Inside the farmhouse, which had children’s toys and a swing set in its frontyard, agents found four small children along with a shotgun and handgun.

The children were taken by the Ventura County Child Protective Services, and the men arrested were taken in for questioning. Their names and any possible charges were not released as of late Tuesday.

“We’re continuing this investigation, and we hope to track down who is behind building the lab,” McClung said.

Wearing respirators and protective suits, agents spent Tuesday cleaning up the toxic sludge and deadly chemical brew used to make the drug. A thick stream of red phosphorous sludge, dumped by the drug cooks, drained into a neighboring broccoli field, authorities said.

The highly toxic chemicals used in making speed can be volatile while they are being mixed. But most of the chemicals had already been used, McClung said.

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Inside the 15-by-30-foot barn the floors and ceiling were stained from the vapor produced when the chemicals are heated during the process of making the drugs.

In the last four years, local authorities have seen a large increase in the number of methamphetamine labs found as demand for drug surges across the state.