Company Admits Selling Chemicals to Meth Makers

An Orange County chemical supply company linked to more than 100 illegal drug labs in Southern California, Arizona and Nevada has pleaded guilty to felony charges, and a judge has authorized the sale of its assets to pay a $100,000 fine, federal prosecutors said Tuesday.

ChemLab Supplies Inc. of Placentia, through its attorney, pleaded guilty Monday to knowingly distributing chemicals and glassware used in manufacturing methamphetamine. Its three owners have agreed to plea bargains that include admitting their roles in illegally supplying the products, prosecutors said.

ChemLab was a major supplier of illicit chemicals and equipment to small and large methamphetamine labs for more than a decade, and its demise is a major blow to meth producers across the Southland, federal and state authorities said.

After the company was raided in August, they said, state narcotics officials reported a 60% decline in the number of meth labs found in Orange County.

“We can take down labs all day long, all over the place, but it makes a major impact when we take down a place like this,” said Walt Allen, who heads the Orange County branch of the state Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement.

On Tuesday, prosecutors filed the documents in which the three owners each agreed to plead guilty to one felony charge.

David Vander Hakes, 44, of Corona is expected to be sentenced later to a 15-month term, said Assistant U.S. Atty. Gail J. Standish. Matthew William Insley, 41, of Huntington Beach, who ran ChemLab’s Hawthorne store, is expected to get 10 months in custody. There was no stipulated sentence for Kevin Scott Miller, 36, of Anaheim. Hakes and Insley each own 40% of the company, and Miller owns the rest.

Authorities said the three-year probe was triggered after investigators noticed that the company’s drugs kept surfacing at meth labs raided by police. The company admitted that more than a quarter of its 1999 revenue--an amount exceeding $400,000--resulted from the illegal sale of chemicals and supplies. In the first six months of last year, more than 40% of its revenue came from illegal sales.

Southern California has long been known as a hotbed for manufacturers of methamphetamine. While the Inland Empire is considered to be the center of the illicit trade, hundreds of labs have been found throughout the region, said Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles.

Federal, state and local officials, working in a task force, have been helped by a 1998 law that requires merchants to log detailed information, including driver’s and vehicle license numbers, for all buyers of products needed to make meth.