Pubdate: Sat, 17 May 2014
Source: Manteca Bulletin (CA)
Copyright: 2014 Manteca Bulletin
Contact:  http://www.mantecabulletin.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3670
Author: Jason Campbell

MEXICAN DRUG CARTELS ALTER METH BATTLE

James Boles doesn't look like an undercover cop.

That's kind of the idea. His hair is cropped short and his goatee is 
scraggly. He wears the band T-shirt and the jeans that you'd expect 
of a construction worker. His shoes bear the worn out soles of 
somebody that has spent a lot of time  and a lot of miles  walking up 
and down the streets chasing the dragon.

Addicts talk about how the high never feels as good as it does the 
first time, and one quick glance at Boles and you see a guy who will 
do anything to get back to that place. If you passed him on the 
street you'd think that he was a guy who hadn't slept for two days. A 
tweaker. Or as one of his friends put it, somebody that "looks like s*."

But the star around his neck is unmistakable. Boles is a San Joaquin 
County Sherriff's Deputy and a member of the San Joaquin County Metro 
Narcotics Task Force. His ability to blend in with those that he's 
investigating is both an asset and an insurance policy.

With the way that the drug trade is constantly shape-shifting in 
California today, the last thing you want to have happen is be 
discovered as a police officer when your backup is a block away and 
you can't radio for help.

Bob Dylan famously sang about how things were changing. He might as 
well have been talking about how things operate within the 
infrastructure of the drug pipelines and distribution networks that 
disseminate the methamphetamine and other street drugs throughout The 
Golden State.

What was once a racket cornered by biker gangs and small local gang 
factions has gone professional. The Mexican drug cartels and their 
meticulous methods are now the template, and the fact that they 
operate across international border makes it harder for people like 
Boles to effectively eradicate what has already surpassed the 
epidemic stage in most Central Valley communities. Meth use is no 
longer a trend or something confined to an after-school special. It 
permeates every level of the societal structure. And it doesn't 
appear to be going away anytime soon.

The Northern Trek

Efforts by specialized units like Boles' and the Manteca Street 
Crimes Unit, in partnership with numerous federal agencies and task 
forces, essentially eradicated the home meth lab from San Joaquin County.

There was a time, Boles said, when his unit (he also serves on the 
lab breakdown team) was called out weekly because a lab had been 
discovered somewhere.

When it became illegal to possess or sell pure ephedrine and 
pharmacies began tracking the number of boxes of cold medicine 
containing pseudoephedrine being sold to individual customers, meth 
cooks that used their garages and sheds to play as amateur chemists 
suddenly found it much harder to fly under the radar.

And once the Drug Enforcement Administration's Office of Diversion 
Control placed a tight lid on the precursors that could be used to 
skirt the traditional backdoor meth manufacturing methods, it 
suddenly became much more viable  and lucrative  for criminal 
syndicates operating outside of the United States to create superlabs 
capable of producing massive amounts of crystallized methamphetamine.

The system operates much the same way it did when cocaine exploded 
onto the scene in the early 1980s. The refinement takes place 
elsewhere and the drugs are then smuggled into the United States by 
trying to force through as much as possible at even given opportunity.

"They'll send ten trucks and if one or two of them get stopped and 
seized at the border, they look at that as the cost of doing 
business," Boles said. "The others get through and those drugs 
eventually make their way into our communities and to wherever there 
is a demand.

"As long as there is a demand, they're going to keep pushing it through."

And anytime you introduce an element like that into the equation 
cartels that use violence and intimidation to control people and 
populations  it adds a whole different layer for local law 
enforcement to deal with.

When people think of cartels, they think of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman 
Loera the Sinaloa cartel king of and leader the vast trafficking 
empire that so much money off of shipping drugs across the border 
that he has appeared on the Forbes list of the world's most powerful 
people every year since 2009.

It's the reach of people like that, however, that makes life 
difficult for local cops.

Cartels mean gangs, and more often than not it's low-level street 
soldiers that are carrying out the orders of higher-ups that call the 
shots and never gets their hands dirty  layers and layers of 
protection separating the top of the pyramid from those just happy to 
be part of the structure.

Take away one and there are 20 more waiting to take his place.

According to Manteca Police Department Street Crimes Unit Sergeant 
Chris Mraz, the meth that is smuggled into the United States is then 
further refined to create the crystal form that is most popular among users.

And his team has seen how intricate that process can be and has taken 
down networks with coordinated efforts among other local law 
enforcement agencies and federal task forces looking to put drug 
dealers and manufacturers out of business for good.

In October Mraz oversaw the simultaneous serving of five search 
warrants throughout San Joaquin County after a long-term 
investigation revealed an extensive web of large-scale drug 
distribution. His detectives  he works with three federal task 
force-certified Manteca Police detectives to comprise the Street 
Crimes Unit and often works closely with other units like Manteca's 
gang suppression unit and Boles' Metro Narcotics Task Force whenever 
there's crossover uncovered 28 pounds of meth and more than 300 
pounds of marijuana scattered about the five homes. The entire haul 
was valued at more than $1.2 million.

There was reason to believe that at least some of those drugs had 
made their way to the Central Valley via that Northern trek through 
the network that connects to the Mexico-based cartels.

The Day-to-Day Dealings

Officers like Mraz - a longtime Manteca cop that has run the gamut on 
assignments - often have their hands full when it comes to working 
cases and investigating new ones.

Outside of what patrol officers uncover, it's just Mraz and three 
other detectives  not counting the gang suppression unit (he says 
more often than not where there are drugs there are gangs and they 
often work together)  trying to keep a handle on all of the narcotics 
dealings taking place in Manteca at a given time.

That means hitting the streets and getting to know the players and 
making yourself both known and invisible at the same time. Despite an 
economy that most people would classify as stagnant, Manteca has 
steadily grown and it's no secret that people as a whole  regardless 
of their job or their house or their clothes  like drugs.

Sometimes that means there's evolution. The threshold for California 
residents to "legally" purchase and smoke marijuana for any one of a 
number of medical ailments is so ridiculously low that some local 
detectives have gotten their own "compassionate use" cards under a DMV alias.

Of course somebody isn't going to become a meth user simply because 
they pick up a joint and smoke it. But as Mraz pointed out, he's 
never met a meth user that didn't start somewhere, and that somewhere 
is more often than not marijuana.

But it's a game of whack-a-mole.

First it was the DEA cracking down on the precursors which led to 
Mexican superlabs.

Now it's the DEA closely monitoring doctors that over-prescribe pain 
medication, which has led to a rise in the trafficking, sales and use 
of heroin  a drug that was replaced somewhat by opiate pain 
medication (Mraz said most that hit the street are stolen in 
residential burglaries) but has roared back thanks to skyrocketing 
prices on drugs like oxycodone (Oxycontin) and hydrocodone (Vicodin, Norco).

The bottom line, however, is the same. Drug sales and the "easy 
money" that come with it will always bring problems, and that's what 
Mraz and his dedicated team hope to remove from the societal equation.

"There is currently a heavy crossover between gangs and drugs because 
it's a revenue source," he said. "In terms of risk and reward, I 
don't think that's on anyone's mind when they're dealing  the allure 
is the profit.

"When my team tries to deal with meth, it's not only because drugs 
are bad. It's also an effort to stem the ancillary crimes that come 
from drug addiction. When people get their homes burglarized or cars 
stolen, it impacts their lives in ways they can't anticipate. What 
they don't think about is this multi-billion dollar business is borne 
on the backs of folks who are just trying to live a normal life and 
become a victim."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom