EL CAJON, Calif. -- On December 2, the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Narcotic Task Force and El Cajon Police Department executed a state search warrant at a warehouse located at 1478 Fayette Street in El Cajon. Investigators uncovered an active and sophisticated hexane hash oil extraction laboratory operation. Additional DEA personnel...

SAN DIEGO – Ernesto Renteria of Chula Vista was sentenced in federal court today to 71 months in custody for distributing more than 100 pounds of deadly fentanyl plus fentanyl analogues, cocaine and methamphetamine. According to his plea agreement, in May 2021, Renteria stored large quantities of the federally controlled...

SAN DIEGO – El Cajon resident Olatunde James Temitope Akintonde was sentenced in federal court today to 15 years in prison for selling fentanyl-laced pills that caused the death of a 19-year-old Santee man, identified in court records as S.J.G., in March of 2019. Akintonde previously admitted that he sent...

SAN DIEGO – San Diego resident Brandon Jacob Shepherd was sentenced in federal court today to thirteen years and eleven months in prison for selling fentanyl that resulted in the death of an eighteen-year-old San Diego woman, identified in court records as P.E.R., in January of 2020. He received one...

SAN DIEGO – Tony Davis was sentenced today in federal court by U.S. District Judge Cathy Ann Bencivengo to 13 years in prison for supplying the heroin and fentanyl that led to the fatal overdose of a 41-year-old San Diego woman, on October 24, 2018. According to his plea agreement...

LOS ANGELES —Today, law enforcement investigators served nine arrest warrants in multiple locations throughout Los Angeles and Riverside Counties. In March of 2020, the DEA launched Operation Crystal Shield to focus efforts on main U.S. methamphetamine trafficking transportation hubs. DEA identified eight major methamphetamine transportation hubs where Operation Crystal Shield...

LOS ANGELES —The culmination of a three-month investigation resulted in a Santa Barbara methamphetamine distributor being sentenced on November 8, 2021 to 180 months in federal prison for narcotics violations. Cesar Castillo-Pena, 35, of San Bernardino, California, was sentenced by United States District Judge R. Gary Klausner. On July 28...

LOS ANGELES – An Arizona man has agreed to plead guilty to a federal criminal charge for supplying counterfeit pharmaceutical pills containing fentanyl to the drug dealer accused of selling them to rapper Mac Miller, who soon afterward suffered a fatal overdose, the Justice Department announced today. Ryan Michael Reavis...

SAN DIEGO - Angel Dominguez Ramirez Jr. of Tamaulipas, Mexico, pleaded guilty in federal court today to drug and money laundering charges, admitting that he was the leader of a trafficking organization that transported ton-quantities of cocaine from South America to Mexico and into the United States. According to court...

SAN DIEGO - The Drug Enforcement Administration, along with its law enforcement partners, has removed close to 745,000 pounds of unneeded prescriptions from medicine cabinets across the country as part of DEA’s ongoing commitment to turn the tide against the U.S. opioid epidemic. Following last month’s 21st National Prescription Drug...