Access #: 517143
Headline: Inland Drug Empire: Riverside and San Bernardino counties reportedly supply
much of the nation with methamphetamine , ruining health, neighborhoods and families along
the way
Date: 01/23/00
Day: Sunday
Credit: The Press -Enterprise
Section: A Section
Zone: ALL ZONES
Page: A01
Byline: Raymond Smith and Aldrin Brown
Caption: 1. Mark Zaleski; The Press -Enterprise ; DECONTAMINATED: A 5-year-old boy
had to be decontaminated when police found a clandestine drug lab in a Palm Springs home in
November. Riverside County Fire Department/California Department of Forestry Capt. Larry
Katuls leads the boy, wearing a protective suit, to a police car. 2. Mark Zaleski; The Press Enterprise ; BUSTED: Danny Howard, 38, sites outside a Moreno Valley house whle a county
fire department haxzardous materials team member tests meth-lab chemicals found inside.
Howard was sentenced to three years in prison for making the drug. 3. Mark Zaleski; The
Press -Enterprise ; LOOKING FOR EVIDENCE: Riverside County sheriff's drug
investigators and a member of the Riverside County Fire department/California Department of
Forestry hazardous materials team sift through trash at a large methamphetamine lab. The lab
in El Cerrito, south of Corona, was discovered in December. 4. Mark Zaleski; The Press Enterprise ; HIDING THE SMELL: A Riverside County sheriff's narcotics investigator
interviews a suspect, above, at a methamphetamine lab that police say was operatd by a
Mexican drug cartel. Smells for the livestock help mask the unusual lab ordors. Chemicals and
other supplies found at the lab in El Cerrito, below, could have produced more than 50 pounds
of methamphetamine , police say. 5. Mark Zaleski; The Press -Enterprise ; BIG MONEY: A
narcotics investigator with the San Bernardino County West Valley Street Enforcement Team
counts cash seized at a drug lab on Pipeline Avenue north of Chino. 6. Mark Zaleski; The
Press -Enterprise ; DUMPING GROUNDS: Undercover San Bernardino County sheriff's
deputies survey thousands of empty pseudoephedrine bottles dumped along Grove Avenue in
Chino in December. Drug labs convert the nasal decongestant to methamphetamine . 7.
LARGE STASH: Sheriff's deputies seized 400 cases of pseudoephedrine in October at a
warehouse in Riverside.
Art: PHOTOS
Notes: See sidebars: "Meth: The Facts", "Searching for drugs smugglers", "A history of meth",
"Meth in the Midwest", and "A new cash crop"
Subject: CRIME; NARCOTICS
Keys: SOURCE NATION; METHAMPHETAMINE ; METH LABS
Type: SERIES
Length: 94.1
Colombia has long been recognized by narcotics experts as the
source nation for cocaine. Thailand is the primary origin of
heroin.
And the Inland Empire is a "source nation" for methamphetamine ,
local drug enforcement agents say, particularly in distribution of
the white crystalline powder. The stimulant is sweeping across
America like a chemical plague, and police in virtually every state
can trace some of that supply to the Inland Empire.
"We are essentially inundated with methamphetamine ," said David
Hidalgo, a San Bernardino County deputy district attorney who
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prosecuted major narcotics cases for 10 years. "Unfortunately, the
Inland Empire -- San Bernardino and Riverside counties -- has
become the methamphetamine capital of the world."
California leads the nation in the number of methamphetamine
labs, according to figures from the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration. More than 40 percent of the California labs busted
since 1996 were in Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Over the
past four years, Inland authorities have found more than 2,500 labs.
The narcotic tidal wave causes obvious damage -- addled,
toothless addicts; exploding homes and apartment used by careless
meth "cooks;" and potentially lethal chemical dumps left behind by
hit-and-run manufacturers.
But The Press -Enterprise found many subtler problems, too, during
a four-month investigation of the regional meth trade:
* Parents who focus on making or getting meth often
neglect or abuse their children. Some youngsters have died when
volatile lab ingredients exploded. Those who avoid such spectacular
disaster can suffer for life because the air they breathe can carry
dangerous toxins.
During an 18-month period, Inland authorities found nearly 500
children in homes with meth labs. Thousands in similar homes went
undiscovered, police officials estimate. Some may be physically and
emotionally damaged for life as a result.
"Meth seems to make people do things they wouldn't do otherwise.
They stop caring about their children, they stop caring about their
families," Riverside County prosecutor Vince Fabrizio said. "It
does destroy a lot of lives and a lot of families."
* Even some parents who have never touched methamphetamine
have unwittingly exposed themselves and their children to danger by
moving into homes that once served as meth labs.
Toxic fumes penetrate walls, floors and ceilings. After labs are
discovered and dismantled, landlords are supposed to rip away
contaminated material, according to health department guidelines in
Riverside and San Bernardino counties. But few cleanups have been
verified, county records show.
Unsuspecting families move into contaminated dwellings because
public agencies do a poor job coordinating proper cleanups, state
and county records show.
* Contamination lingers in other ways. Toxic byproducts
and wastes created during lab operations typically are dumped onto
the ground or washed down drains, poisoning the environment.
* Meth also takes a significant toll on police agencies.
Inland departments devote hundreds of people per year to attack the
problem. Nearly 40 California narcotics officers were injured last
year busting labs. Others developed long-term disabilities,
possibly from toxic or cancer-causing chemicals in meth labs they
shut down. These disabilities can cost hundreds of thousands of
dollars per officer in medical care and early pension payments.
As Inland officials grapple with the problem, police and social
service agencies nationwide know California's problems soon
will be their own. And they are looking to the Golden State
for solutions. "It's going to move from one place to the other.
So what they see in California, we're going to see in Iowa in
two or three years," said Jerry Nelson, a state drug agent in
Iowa.
* * *
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'Mom-and-pop' vs. cartel
In 1998, police discovered 1,717 clandestine drug labs in
California, 99 percent of which involved methamphetamine , according
to state narcotics officials. Nearly half, 851, were in Riverside
and San Bernardino counties.
Drug agents say the Inland Empire's methamphetamine trade is
divided into two distinct parts -- large-capacity drug-cartel labs
and small-capacity, "mom-and-pop" labs.
Manufacturing typically begins when a decongestant called
pseudoephedrine is mixed with acid and heated. Because of that
"cooking" process, meth makers are called cooks.
About 85 percent of labs in California produce no more than a few
ounces of methamphetamine , said Riverside County sheriff's Sgt.
Steve Rinks.
Meth users who operate "mom-and-pop" labs generally make a few
ounces, just enough drug to feed their habit and have a bit left
over to sell so they can buy supplies for the next batch, he said.
The small stovetop labs pose the greatest danger of exploding.
Amateurish, small-time cooks often have only a cursory
understanding of the dangerous chemicals they're using. And
typically, amid the delicate operation, the cooks are high.
Smaller labs also are more likely to endanger their neighbors -partly because they're more likely to have neighbors. Small labs
usually are set up in apartments, houses, trailers, motels or
anywhere the odoriferous chemicals can be used inconspicuously. The
pungent mixture smells similar to putrid diapers, rotten fish or
stale animal urine.
The labs that help spread Inland-made methamphetamine across
America are large operations, primarily controlled by Mexican drug
cartels, narcotics agents say. Those labs make up only about 15
percent of all meth labs in California, but they are big, bubbling
pots of noxious, toxic chemicals that can churn out more than 100
pounds of the drug in a day or two. For every pound made, labs
create up to six gallons of toxic waste.
Cartels cook with industrial efficiency. Pre-measured ingredients
in color-coded packages are combined in a strict recipe. A single
batch can net a half-million dollars or more, so big producers are
loathe to risk mistakes that could wipe out a small fortune in drugs.
Historically, most cartel methamphetamine shipped from California
has been manufactured in the Inland Empire, the Central Valley or
Mexico, drug agents say. Cartels are attracted by the Inland
region's major interstate highways, vast open spaces and closeness
to the Mexican border.
As the problem worsened, police agencies throughout Southern
California teamed up on task forces to hunt for labs and the
chemicals needed to make methamphetamine .
In the first nine months of 1998, police in the Inland Empire
found 35 Mexican cartel labs capable of producing 20 pounds or more
of meth per batch, which can take a day or two to make, according
to the Inland Narcotics Clearing House. The multi-agency
law-enforcement group compiles drug statistics in the Inland area
and analyzes data.
Lately, San Bernardino and Riverside counties have seen fewer
cartel labs as federal, state and local police have joined forces
against the problem.
In San Bernardino County, police seized six labs that produced
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more than 20 pounds a batch during the first nine months of 1999,
compared with 18 during the same period in 1998. The number of
comparable labs in Riverside County fell from 17 to 7.
Pressured by law enforcement, cartels are moving some labs to
other parts of California and into Mexico, said Riverside County
sheriff's Sgt. Guy Wallace, who is assigned to the clearinghouse.
"It's irrelevant to them whether today they need to cook in San
Jose and tomorrow they have to cook in Hanford," said Katina
Kypridakes of the state Department of Justice. "It's (all about)
convenience, availability of personnel and the items necessary to
carry out the operation."
Inland narcotics officers suspect other factors may be at work.
Local drug agents spend most of their time finding and dismantling
hundreds of small labs. And cartels simply may have grown better at
hiding labs.
Plenty of large labs remain undetected, drug agents suspect. The
point is made on a lonely stretch of road in dairy country near
Chino in November.
Thirty large black trash bags filled with thousands of empty
pseudoephedrine pill bottles litter the roadside. The waste
included three dozen empty solvent cans. A week before, a farmer
cleaned up a similar dump in the same area.
"There's a Mexican national lab here somewhere, real ... close,"
San Bernardino County sheriff's Deputy Shannon Dicus said.
* * *
The Inland connection
From California to the Carolinas, criminal investigations and
drug seizures have traced tons of methamphetamine back to the
Inland Empire, fueling the "source nation" reputation.
* In November, two cousins from Colima, Mexico, were
sentenced in Los Angeles to 27 years in federal prison as leaders
of a methamphetamine trafficking group. The organization headed by
Rafael Anguiano Chavez and Carlos Javier Martinez Anguiano had
operated since 1996, federal prosecutors said.
Meth was shipped from large labs in Apple Valley and Los Angeles
County to Dallas. From there, it moved to South Carolina, Chicago,
Atlanta, Miami and New York, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Lisa
Feldman. Fourteen others were convicted and sentenced to state or
federal prison as part of nationwide wiretap investigation that
began in Dallas, Feldman said.
* Also in November, police in Texas arranged to buy three
pounds of methamphetamine from a Riverside area man, said Sgt.
Braxton Morton of the Texas Department of Public Safety. The
suspect, whom police refused to identify, was arrested when he met
undercover officers in New Mexico to complete the transaction,
Morton said.
* In December 1998, Riverside County sheriff's
investigators found 50 pounds of marijuana and a methamphetamine
lab at an apartment on Burton Street in Riverside. Police allege
Santos Peinado was trafficking methamphetamine and marijuana to
Lincoln, Neb. Peinado pleaded not guilty to drug charges in
Riverside County Superior Court.
* In January 1998, Riverside County Sheriff's
investigators arrested San Bernardino resident Juan Salas at his
home.
Officers watched Salas for a year, according to a sheriff's
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report. In that time, officers used information they gathered to
make numerous methamphetamine seizures as part of spinoff
investigations, police said.
When Salas was arrested, investigators found 10 pounds of
methamphetamine near the gas tank of a vehicle in his garage, the
report said. Two women were supposed to deliver the drugs to
Muscatine, Iowa. Detectives arrested the women and dismantled the
Iowa trafficking group, the report said. Salas was convicted on
federal drug charges in Iowa and was sentenced to prison, Rinks said.
* Since the mid-1990s, investigators in Des Moines, Iowa,
have tracked meth made in the Inland area directly to the city's
streets. Des Moines police Lt. Clarence Jobe estimated that 85
percent of methamphetamine in the city comes from Southern
California and Mexico.
* * *
Moving meth nationwide
Despite the Inland area's prominence as a "source nation," some
of the meth manufacturing trade is moving to other areas, such as
the Central Valley. The Inland region remains a prime distribution
hub for meth traffickers.
Most meth manufactured in California or Mexico comes through the
two-county region before its journey to other states begins, drug
agents say.
It usually leaves California by highway.
On a November evening, CHP Officer Robert Mendenhall scanned the
traffic on Interstate 15 from his patrol car north of San
Bernardino. Dino, Mendehall's drug-sniffing German shepherd, barked
noisily behind the driver's seat.
Mendenhall looks for drug traffickers. Somewhere among the
thousands of cars and trucks, he says, someone is smuggling
methamphetamine .
He is one of 16 officers assigned to a CHP interdiction team that
cruises interstates in Riverside and San Bernardino counties. The
team pulls over drivers for traffic violations as the first step in
efforts to find drug smugglers and other criminals.
They offer only general insights into the indicators they look
for when choosing cars or drivers to focus on. It can be something
as simple as driving a Ford, because that make has natural hiding
places between metal walls that make it easier to store drugs.
A car with out-of-state license plates and stickers for a local
radio station might pique Mendenhall's curiosity.
Sometimes after a stop, officers will ask drivers for permission
to hold their wrists for a quick pulse check. Drivers' pulse rates
and eyes can show signs of intoxication.
When there are enough indicators, Mendenhall asks permission to
search a vehicle. Drivers almost always consent, he said.
Two years ago, Mendenhall stopped a man in a U-Haul truck. His
pulse rate was about 180 beats per minute, more than twice the
normal rate, Mendenhall said.
"The driver was so nervous while I talked to him that he passed
out," Mendenhall said.
The U-Haul truck contained 50 pounds of methamphetamine hidden in
a refrigerator.
Officers do not stop drivers based on a racial profile, said Sgt.
Tom Carmichael, who heads the CHP's Inland drug-interdiction
program. Nationwide, police agencies have been accused of using
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profiles that cause them to stop a disproportionate number of
minorities.
"We do not profile based on any racial element at all," he said.
To thwart police, traffickers occasionally team up. If Mendenhall
shows interest in "a load car," a vehicle carrying drugs, another
trafficker driving a car without drugs might swerve dangerously to
divert attention.
"They try to bait us," Mendenhall said. "They know what we look
like, where we work."
Smugglers also hire women and children, or "rent-a-families," to
disguise their operations.
Caches of methamphetamine are increasingly common, but highway
teams also find marijuana, cocaine, heroin, guns and other
contraband.
Given Southern Californians' passion for driving, it's not
surprising that traffickers usually smuggle methamphetamine out of
the state in cars and trucks. Thousands of vehicles leave
California each year carrying 1 to 20 pounds of methamphetamine in
hidden compartments, fuel tanks, spare tires or other crannies,
police say.
Smugglers ship methamphetamine and money on buses, trains and
airplanes and via U.S. mail and package delivery companies. They
pack drugs in coffee grounds, mustard and other aromatic substances
in bids to get past a police dog's nose.
Often, the dogs aren't fooled. But the dogs can't be everywhere,
and the methods of smuggling drugs are as numerous and varied as
the traffickers themselves.
"Your imagination is the limit, because they do it every
conceivable way," said Sgt. Mike Bayer, a meth specialist with the
San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department.
Wholesale methamphetamine prices are about $5,000 a pound in
California. Traffickers keep loads small to cut their losses in
case police intercept a shipment.
The real fortune is in the Midwest and eastern states, where a
pound can fetch $14,000.
Statewide, CHP meth seizures increased from 350 pounds in 1996 to
2,064 pounds in 1998, officials said. Highway teams in Riverside
and San Bernardino counties found almost 25 percent of the total in
1998, Carmichael said.
* * *
Sophisticated traffickers
Once methamphetamine reaches other states, cartels use a variety
of techniques to gain strongholds in areas with Hispanic
populations, state and federal authorities said.
For instance, meth traffickers have followed Latino workers who
are drawn to midwestern farms and meat-packing jobs, said Shirley
Armstead, spokeswoman for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration
in St. Louis.
"The Mexican drug traffickers are coming to those areas where
there is a legitimate Mexican community, and they're blending in
and distributing their methamphetamine that way," she said.
Most methamphetamine in Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, South
Dakota and southern Illinois comes from California and Mexico, she
said.
Compared to meat-packing, the pay is good. Workers recruited by
Mexican traffickers might receive a few hundred dollars a day to
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work at a lab or drive a load of meth. Experienced cooks who run
lab operations earn much more.
Traffickers typically recruit workers from the same region in
Mexico where they are based, agents said. When low-level workers
are arrested, most remain mum, knowing cartel leaders kill
informants' relatives, Carmichael said.
"That's why they (cartels) use people they're comfortable with.
They have the leverage; they have the threat of death," Carmichael
said.
Beyond such primitive but effective threats, the cartels use
increasingly sophisticated techniques to elude authorities. They
operate organizations out of the Los Angeles area, where they can
broker deals for chemicals and coordinate lab setups throughout the
state.
Police say it's a struggle to keep up. "They're very
sophisticated in their organizations," said Marie Fournier, a San
Bernardino County prosecutor who specializes in major
narcotics-trafficking operations. "Even within the organization,
they'll compartmentalize information from workers to protect the
higher-up organizations.
To guard against infiltrators, she said, "they conduct
countersurveillance."
To neutralize electronic snoopers, "They'll dump their cell
phones and change pagers as a matter of course every couple of
months."
The increasing sophistication makes some authorities pessimistic
about their ability to prevent proliferation of the
multibillion-dollar business .
"I haven't seen it going down," said Sgt. Don Doster, a San
Bernardino County sheriff's deputy assigned to a regional task
force that focuses on drug traffickers using San Bernardino
County's High Desert highways. "We've seen an increase in the meth
problem going out of state.
"For every one stop that there's an interdiction, there's
probably 10 of them that get by us."
* * *
The ultimate export
Sometimes traffickers end up transporting more than just white
crystals to other states. They also funnel know-how and criminal
entrepreneurial skills.
For instance, agents say one man from San Bernardino County can
be linked to the plague of methamphetamine labs in Missouri since
the mid-1990s.
In 1993, Willi H. Olsen brought San Bernardino County
methamphetamine cooker Kenny Marsh to Independence, Mo., to help
set up a manufacturing operation. Olsen already was trafficking
methamphetamine from California and wanted to avoid the risks of
transportation, police said.
Marsh taught a man named Hugh Escobar to cook. Marsh became ill
and returned to California, where he died of heart failure caused
by years of meth use, Independence police said. Escobar kept
cooking methamphetamine and later taught Barry Fillpot, a Missouri
man. Fillpot showed a few others.
Olsen, Escobar and Fillpot were convicted on federal charges of
manufacturing and distributing methamphetamine and sentenced to
prison. By then, however, they had educated a new generation of
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cooks.
The recipe spread in an ever-expanding circle of methamphetamine
labs. "It just geometrically grows from there," said Detective Mike
Skaggs of the Independence, Mo., police.
In 1993, police in Independence busted a couple of labs. The
number was 53 in 1995 and 110 in 1997.
Skaggs believes most hatched from the work of Marsh and Escobar.
"They were brought out to cook when (other traffickers) couldn't
get their meth muled out here," Skaggs said. "It just went
explosive. It went berserk."
* * *
Today
How the Inland meth epidemic is spreading nationwide.
Monday
Meth users often neglect or abuse their children. What can be
done to help children cope with the trauma?
Some families struggle to reunite once a parent stops using
meth.
Inland counties recently started a program to give kids found in
meth labs a complete health and social evaluation.
Tuesday
Researchers nationwide are using the Inland area as a
laboratory for studying the health effects of meth.
Police officers suffer health risks because of exposure to
toxic chemicals found in meth labs they bust.
Wednesday
Inland families may be living in homes that once housed meth
labs but were not cleaned up properly because of poor coordination,
lax oversight and a gap in state laws.
Thursday
Despite plentiful resources, Inland authorities say theyve been
unable to slow the production or use of meth.
Treatment is available in the Inland area, but overcoming a
meth addiction is an excruciating, lifelong process.
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