Detectives with the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Department have completed a three-month investigation into a major methamphetamine-dealing operation that netted nearly $2 million worth of methamphetamine and one arrest, the sheriff’s department said Thursday.
Efrian Garcia, 49, of Southern California has been charged for the alleged distribution and sale of controlled substances, and remains in sheriff’s custody pending an immigration hold.
In August, two pounds of methamphetamine were purchased in the parking lot of a grocery store on Tefft Street in Nipomo, which led to the purchase of nine pounds of methamphetamine in Southern California, according to the sheriff’s department.
Garcia was arrested Aug. 21 and is the only person charged in the case, sheriff’s department spokesman Rob Bryn said.
The 11 pounds of narcotics recovered during the operation have an estimated street value of $1.9 million.
Bryn called the bust “one of the largest to date this year” in San Luis Obispo County.
The investigation was a combined effort by the sheriff’s Narcotics Unit and federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigators based in Camarillo.
The announcement Thursday came a day after a gang sweep in the Santa Maria Valley by a multi-agency, FBI-led task force resulted in 25 arrests including federal charges of sales of large quantities of methamphetamine for 17 of the suspects who are related to the Northwest gang.
Several of the suspects potentially face life sentences or long terms in federal prison.
September 12, 2008
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