Police, Feds Take Down Local Mexican Cartel Operation

 

Pasadena Police officers and federal agents with the San Gabriel Valley Safe Streets Task Force arrested multiple area gang members and associates Thursday morning during “Operation Rose Bud,” a multi-agency investigation targeting members of drug trafficking organizations operating in the San Gabriel Valley and Antelope Valley.

At a press conference, law enforcement officials said the operation has resulted in arrests,  two dozen federal indictments and seizure of $2.5 million in illegal drugs.

Pasadena Chief of Police Phillip Sanchez said that officers from the Pasadena Police Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and other law enforcement agencies served warrants throughout Los Angeles County at 5:00 a.m. this morning.

Officials said 12 were arrested Thursday, seven were already in custody and five are still being sought. Those arrested today include Jose Salvador Villa, 37, whom police said is the leader of the Pasadena gang.

The warrants were generated following an 18-month narcotics operation which was initiated in Pasadena when members of the San Gabriel Valley Safe Streets Task Force received information that Edwin Benjamin Ayala was selling methamphetamine in the Pasadena and Altadena area.

That intelligence, Sanchez said, was the starting point towards the identification of a large-scale narcotics distribution network actively supplying methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin into the Pasadena and Lancaster regions.

The network hierarchy included deliveries into the United States from the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico, then split into two regional distribution rings and street level sellers.

Working closely with the United States Attorneys’ Office, law enforcement officers secure 24 federal indictments resulting in multiple arrests. Many of the arrests are active gang members or associates of a Pasadena Latino gang known as the Varrio Pasadena Rifa, VPR.

These VPR gang members are directly responsible for drug trades in Pasadena, Sanchez said.

Narcotics seized associated with this investigation were 60.5 pounds of methamphetamine, six pounds of tar heroin and five pounds of powder cocaine. The total estimated street value is approximately $2.5 million.

“The culmination of this investigation will significantly impact distribution and sales of narcotics specifically methamphetamine in the San Gabriel Valley and Lancaster regions.,” Sanchez said. “Operation Rosebud should be viewed as a strong message to gang members, drug organization and other predators in the Pasadena area that the Pasadena Police Department and law enforcement partners will not tolerate elicit narcotics activity.”

FBI Agent James Manzi along with Pasadena Police Officers Sergeant Bobby Crees, Jason Cordova, and Jeffrey Disney were instrumental in the investigations for the arrests, Sanchez noted.