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.
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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.