Hitting the cartels where it hurts

6 lbs of fentanyl off the streets, police say



HISTORIC HAUL—Deputies display the fruits of their labor during a press conference Oct. 9 in Thousand Oaks. BECCA WHITNALL/Acorn Newspapers

HISTORIC HAUL—Deputies display the fruits of their labor during a press conference Oct. 9 in Thousand Oaks. BECCA WHITNALL/Acorn Newspapers

The Ventura County Sheriff’s Office, with the help of a handful of other law enforcement agencies, has arrested 15 people and seized nearly $11 million worth of drugs following a yearlong investigation into associates of the notorious Sinaloa cartel, the department announced Tuesday.

Seized were 161 pounds of methamphetamine, 121 pounds of cocaine, 13.2 pounds of heroin, 6.6 pounds of fentanyl, 600 fentanyl pills, more than $353,000 in alleged drug-sales proceeds and 12 guns of various types, police said.

The fentanyl seizure is what makes the bust so significant, Undersheriff Gary Pentis said at an Oct. 9 press conference at the East County Sheriff’s Station in Thousand Oaks.

Overdose deaths in the county were up 42 percent last year, he said. Of the 165 lives lost to drugs in 2017, a significant number were due to fentanyl, a synthetic opiate now produced in large quantities by Mexican drug cartels.

“ When our coroner was interviewed earlier in the year, and the death rate was about 32 at the time, he (said that) 22 of those deaths contained fentanyl as one of the components in the opiates,” Pentis said.

Fentanyl is often mixed with other drugs because it’s inexpensive and increases the potency of the drugs, but because it’s so potent, it’s easy to overdose on it, Pentis said.

To illustrate, the undersheriff poured a packet of sugar into his palm, explaining that the packet contained about 1,000 milligrams. Three milligrams of fentanyl is considered a lethal dose.

The 6.6 pounds seized by the investigators is equal to about 3 million milligrams, about a million lethal doses.

The investigation began about a year ago with a bust in Camarillo. From there, investigators traced the fentanyl and other drugs to a Los Angelesbased drug trafficking organization dubbed Familia Rangel that is headed by Omar Rangel, 29, of the San Fernando Valley, Pentis said.

Investigators believe the organization was moving large quantities of narcotics originating from the Sinaloa cartel. Once they got the drugs past the Mexico border—police declined to explain how—they distributed the narcotics to bulk traffickers in L.A. and Ventura counties who would divide the shipments and send quantities out to be further divided and sold, Pentis said.

So far, the sheriff’s department has submitted seven of the 13 arrests made in the county to the district attorney’s office, and the department has processed those, a D.A. spokesperson said. The additional two arrests made in connection to the case were made outside of the sheriff’s jurisdiction, Pentis said.

Rangel faces seven drugrelated charges plus five special allegations due to the amount of drugs involved. A spokesperson for the D.A.’s office said Rangel faces a maximum sentence of 16 years.

The organization’s suspected leader has been released on $250,000 bail and is scheduled to appear in court today, Oct. 19.

Other arrestees are Bryan Vega, 20, of Reseda; Nancy Romero, 33, of Canoga Park; Cesar Serrano, 30, of Winnetka; Alma Ceja, 47, of Downey; Richard Riley, 48, of Hollywood; Rhonda Harvey, 47, of Van Nuys; William Kragthorpe, 54, of Sherman Oaks; Xavier Lozano, 27, of Imperial Beach; Jose Soto, 40, of Los An-geles; Joseph Soto, 21, of Los Angeles; Jorge Jimenez, 43, of Sylmar; Alondra Banuelos, 23, of Sylmar; Melissa Arnold, 45, of Oxnard and Joshua Grimes, 34, of Simi Valley.

The sheriff’s office worked with the Simi Valley and Oxnard police departments as well as the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Ventura County Combined Agency Task Force in investigating the operation.

The agencies anticipate additional arrests.