Massive heroin and gang crackdown in North County, California

After a year long investigation named “Operation No Worries” by the North County Regional Gang Task Force in California, consisting of extensive surveillance, months of federal wiretaps, and dozens of undercover drug and gun buys; the Gang Task Force along with other federal, state and local law enforcement agencies set out early yesterday morning to make numerous arrest and perform investigation searches in over 20 locations in Oceanside, Vista, and other areas in North County as well as in Kingman, Arizona. Their morning efforts led to the arrest of 14 more defendants, bringing the total to 46 arrested and in federal or state custody. The Gang Task Force and other law #enforcement continue the search for seven defendants plus two in Mexico.

Courtesy of ICE

According to the ten federal indictments that was unsealed yesterday, many of the 55 defendants are documented members or associates of area street gangs, including the Vista Home Boys, Varrio Fallbrook Locos, Varrio Carlsbad Locos, Encinitas Tortilla Flats, Varrio San Marcos and Escondido Viejo Diablos; charges against them range from heroin drug distribution, firearms trafficking, money laundering, vehicles, deaths, robberies and burglaries, assaults and methamphetamine distribution.

Many of those in custody were scheduled for 2 pm arraignment yesterday and today before U. S. Magistrate Judge Karen S Crawford. Throughout the investigation and searches authorities seized numerous counts of heroin, methamphetamine and 25 firearms, including handguns, revolvers and assault rifles. They also discovered that drugs and guns were being sold and stored throughout North County neighborhoods, including across the street from Vista high school.

According to the charging documents, one of the defendants named Yadira Esmeralda Villalvazo, 38, aka “Pini”, from Tijuana, Mexico led a trafficking organization that used street gang members to distribute heroin. Villalvazo, herself attended Vista high school and was associated with the Vista Home Boys street gang before she was deported in 2002 after a federal drug trafficking conviction. 

She now owns her own Sinaloa Cartel-linked organization in Tijuana, and supplies and sells heroin to at least 25 percent of North County's consumers which grosses her tens of thousands of dollars that are all sent back to Mexico. Also, according to court records, her network supplied great quantities of drugs to a well known heroin ring in Kingman, Arizona. 

Justice Department