Methamphetamine Ring Broken Up; 16 Arrested

Concluding a five-month investigation, local and federal law enforcement officers have busted a methamphetamine ring that manufactured and sold thousands of dollars worth of the drug daily in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties for nearly two years, authorities said Thursday.

Sixteen people were arrested at 10 homes in Ventura, Oxnard, Port Hueneme and Pico Rivera in Los Angeles County between Oct. 20 and Thursday, authorities said.

Officers seized 19 pounds of methamphetamine, 3 1/2 pounds of cocaine, 15 pounds of marijuana, 2 pounds of a mixing agent called ephedrine and more than 80,000 tablets of pseudoephedrine, another mixing agent.

Ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, stimulants contained in numerous legal medicines such as cold tablets, are illegal to possess in such quantities.

Authorities valued the drugs at more than $1 million.

Also seized were four handguns and $58,000 in cash, thought to be drug proceeds. No clandestine labs were found.

The suspects, all of whom remained jailed Thursday night, live throughout Southern California and in Mexico, but the organization was believed to have been headquartered at several homes in Oxnard, authorities said.

“These guys were moving quantities of drugs every single day and, when you total that up over many weeks, we call them major dealers. We feel this puts a pretty substantial dent in the problem,” Sheriff’s Capt. Dennis Carpenter said.

The drug ring was led by nine key players, including two women, who were selling between a quarter of an ounce and an ounce of methamphetamine to dozens of middleman dealers each day, Carpenter said.

Most of the sales took place at two restaurants and two motels in Oxnard, he said.

Detectives are also investigating whether some of the suspects also transported and sold methamphetamine in Colorado.

So far, no interstate drug trafficking charges have been alleged but Carpenter said he anticipates additional arrests and more charges in the next two weeks.

Asked how big of a dent the arrests could make in the county’s drug problem, Carpenter said it was difficult to say. He said no one could know for sure because it’s unknown how much of the drug was transported and sold daily in Ventura County.

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Carpenter said this operation, operated by about two dozen people, involved daily drug sales to 20 or 30 buyers at several locations in and outside the county.

Authorities know this because they had the suspects under surveillance for months and used undercover agents.

The captain said the buyers were mostly gang members from Oxnard and Lompoc in Santa Barbara County who wanted the drugs for both personal use and resale.

Dealers in the operation were selling between 5 and 30 ounces a day, he said. The captain didn’t know how much of the drug this group had actually sold, but in past cases, deputies have valued an ounce of methamphetamine at between $250 and $400--making 30 ounces possibly worth about $12,000.

The alleged ring leaders arrested were David Alcozar, 34, of Santa Paula; Yrma Arrequin, 30, of Port Hueneme; Arthur Chavez, 34, of Oxnard; Jamal Khalil, 31, of Los Angeles; Jovita Lemos, 33, of Oxnard; Ralph Magallon, 29, of Oxnard; Roberto Marquez, 29, of Thousand Oaks; Juan Martinez, 25, of Oxnard, and Marcos Martinez, 35, of Oxnard.

They were being held on suspicion of several charges that include conspiring to manufacture and distribute methamphetamine, possessing cocaine, using a firearm in the commission of a felony and possessing a vehicle with a secret compartment.

Although not believed to be a ring leader, one of those arrested was a 37-year-old Oxnard man, Mario Juarez, who was being held on suspicion of possession of methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana for sale, authorities said.

Of the 19 pounds of methamphetamine recovered, 11 pounds were found last week during a search of Juarez’s trailer off California 1 in south Oxnard, Carpenter said.

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Among those arrested, bail for Juarez, Juan Martinez, Khalil, Chavez, Marquez and Marcos Martinez is the highest--$1 million each.

The remaining suspects were jailed on charges that included possession of illegal drugs, possession for sale and possession of a firearm used during a felony. Their bails ranged between $50,000 and $250,000.

The other suspects are Dagoberto Chiquete, 41, of Mexico; Antonio Diaz, 44, of Oxnard; Vicente Esquivel, 22, of Mexico; Luis Gutierrez, 29, of Oxnard; Jose Olmos, 22 of Oxnard, and Alfonso Velasco, 23, of Mexico.

Authorities believe that the ring manufactured some of the drugs locally but also purchased quantities from other local and out-of-town sellers.

The massive drug operation involved 60 law enforcement officers from the Ventura County Combined Agency Team, also known as VCAT.

The team was formed in July and is managed by the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department. It includes representatives from the Ventura, Oxnard and Simi Valley police departments, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, the county probation office and the district attorney’s office.

VCAT was formerly known as VXNET, the Ventura and Oxnard Narcotics Enforcement Team, which was formed more than five years ago to investigate drug cases, Carpenter said. That team started investigating the drug ring in May before being folded into the larger VCAT team.