2 arrested after allegedly tossing 30K ‘rainbow’ fentanyl pills from vehicle in Costa Mesa pursuit

Costa Mesa police on Tuesday arrested two individuals suspected of evading police and possession of fentanyl for sale, after a traffic stop led to a pursuit during which a suspect tossed three bags containing 30,000 pills from the vehicle.

Spokeswoman Roxi Fyad said the incident took place shortly before 5 p.m., when an officer attempted to pull over a 2016 Ford Edge for failing to stop at a stop sign and making an unsafe turn in eastside Costa Mesa.

Instead of yielding, the driver allegedly engaged officers in a low-speed chase that crossed city boundaries into Newport Beach. At one point in the pursuit, three plastic bags were thrown from the window of the moving vehicle, CMPD reported.

“The passenger threw the bags out while the driver was evading the police,” Fyad said Thursday.

When officers retrieved the bags, they discovered several smaller bags containing approximately 30,000 multicolored “rainbow” fentanyl pills.

Newport Beach police officers assisted in initiating a high-risk car stop on the city’s Dover Drive, at which point the occupants were ordered to exit the vehicle.

Although three people were in the car at the time of the incident, only two suspects — Oscar Mercado-Arriaga, 49, of South Gate and Natalie Contreras, 37, of Gardena — were taken into custody and booked at the Costa Mesa jail on suspicion of felony evading and possession.

Both Contreras and Mercado-Arriaga were being held Thursday on $500,000 bail and were scheduled to appear in court that day, according to an online inmate locator maintained by the county sheriff’s department. Information on the third occupant of the vehicle was not immediately available Thursday, but Fyad clarified that person was not arrested.

CMPD Chief Ron Lawrence, in a Facebook post issued Wednesday, shared news of the arrest and congratulated those involved in making the arrest.

“Great work by our Costa Mesa police officers,” he wrote. “Arresting these drug dealers and getting these deadly drugs off the streets saved lives.”

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