INLAND DRUG EMPIRE

Riverside and San Bernardino counties reportedly supply much of the
nation with methamphetamine,ruining health, neighborhoods and families
along the way

Colombia has long been recognized by narcotics experts as the source
nation for cocaine. Thailand is the primary origin of heroin.

And the Inland Empire is a "source nation" for methamphetamine, local
drug enforcement agents say, particularly in distribution of the white
crystalline powder. The stimulant is sweeping across America like a
chemical plague, and police in virtually every state can trace some of
that supply to the Inland Empire.

"We are essentially inundated with methamphetamine," said David
Hidalgo, a San Bernardino County deputy district attorney who
prosecuted major narcotics cases for 10 years. "Unfortunately, the
Inland Empire -- San Bernardino and Riverside counties -- has become
the methamphetamine capital of the world."

California leads the nation in the number of methamphetamine labs,
according to figures from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
More than 40 percent of the California labs busted since 1996 were in
Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Over the past four years,
Inland authorities have found more than 2,500 labs.

The narcotic tidal wave causes obvious damage -- addled, toothless
addicts; exploding homes and apartment used by careless meth "cooks;"
and potentially lethal chemical dumps left behind by hit-and-run
manufacturers.

But The Press-Enterprise found many subtler problems, too, during a
four-month investigation of the regional meth trade:

. Parents who focus on making or getting meth often neglect or abuse
their children. Some youngsters have died when volatile lab
ingredients exploded. Those who avoid such spectacular disaster can
suffer for life because the air they breathe can carry dangerous toxins.

During an 18-month period, Inland authorities found nearly 500
children in homes with meth labs. Thousands in similar homes went
undiscovered, police officials estimate. Some may be physically and
emotionally damaged for life as a result.

"Meth seems to make people do things they wouldn't do otherwise. They
stop caring about their children, they stop caring about their
families," Riverside County prosecutor Vince Fabrizio said. "It does
destroy a lot of lives and a lot of families."

. Even some parents who have never touched methamphetamine have
unwittingly exposed themselves and their children to danger by moving
into homes that once served as meth labs.

Toxic fumes penetrate walls, floors and ceilings. After labs are
discovered and dismantled, landlords are supposed to rip away
contaminated material, according to health department guidelines in
Riverside and San Bernardino counties. But few cleanups have been
verified, county records show.

Unsuspecting families move into contaminated dwellings because public
agencies do a poor job coordinating proper cleanups, state and county
records show.

. Contamination lingers in other ways. Toxic byproducts and wastes
created during lab operations typically are dumped onto the ground or
washed down drains, poisoning the environment.

. Meth also takes a significant toll on police agencies. Inland
departments devote hundreds of people per year to attack the problem.
Nearly 40 California narcotics officers were injured last year busting
labs. Others developed long-term disabilities, possibly from toxic or
cancer-causing chemicals in meth labs they shut down. These
disabilities can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per officer in
medical care and early pension payments.

As Inland officials grapple with the problem, police and social
service agencies nationwide know California's problems soon will be
their own. And they are looking to the Golden State for
solutions."It's going to move from one place to the other. So what
they see in California, we're going to see in Iowa in two or three
years," said Jerry Nelson, a state drug agent in Iowa.

'Mom-and-pop' vs. cartel

In 1998, police discovered 1,717 clandestine drug labs in California,
99 percent of which involved methamphetamine, according to state
narcotics officials. Nearly half, 851, were in Riverside and San
Bernardino counties.

Drug agents say the Inland Empire's methamphetamine trade is divided
into two distinct parts -- large-capacity drug-cartel labs and
small-capacity, "mom-and-pop" labs.

Manufacturing typically begins when a decongestant called
pseudoephedrine is mixed with acid and heated. Because of that
"cooking" process, meth makers are called cooks.

About 85 percent of labs in California produce no more than a few
ounces of methamphetamine, said Riverside County sheriff's Sgt. Steve
Rinks.

Meth users who operate "mom-and-pop" labs generally make a few ounces,
just enough drug to feed their habit and have a bit left over to sell
so they can buy supplies for the next batch, he said.

The small stovetop labs pose the greatest danger of exploding.
Amateurish, small-time cooks often have only a cursory understanding
of the dangerous chemicals they're using. And typically, amid the
delicate operation, the cooks are high.

Smaller labs also are more likely to endanger their neighbors --
partly because they're more likely to have neighbors. Small labs
usually are set up in apartments, houses, trailers, motels or anywhere
the odoriferous chemicals can be used inconspicuously. The pungent
mixture smells similar to putrid diapers, rotten fish or stale animal
urine.

The labs that help spread Inland-made methamphetamine across America
are large operations, primarily controlled by Mexican drug cartels,
narcotics agents say. Those labs make up only about 15 percent of all
meth labs in California, but they are big, bubbling pots of noxious,
toxic chemicals that can churn out more than 100 pounds of the drug in
a day or two. For every pound made, labs create up to six gallons of
toxic waste.

Cartels cook with industrial efficiency. pre-measured ingredients in
color-coded packages are combined in a strict recipe. A single batch
can net a half-million dollars or more, so big producers are loathe to
risk mistakes that could wipe out a small fortune in drugs.

Historically, most cartel methamphetamine shipped from California has
been manufactured in the Inland Empire, the Central Valley or Mexico,
drug agents say. Cartels are attracted by the Inland region's major
interstate highways, vast open spaces and closeness to the Mexican
border.

As the problem worsened, police agencies throughout Southern
California teamed up on task forces to hunt for labs and the chemicals
needed to make methamphetamine.

In the first nine months of 1998, police in the Inland Empire found 35
Mexican cartel labs capable of producing 20 pounds or more of meth per
batch, which can take a day or two to make, according to the Inland
Narcotics Clearing House. The multi-agency lww-enforcement group
compiles drug statistics in the Inland area and analyzes data.

Lately, San Bernardino and Riverside counties have seen fewer cartel
labs as federal, state and local police have joined forces against the
problem.

In San Bernardino County, police seized six labs that produced more
than 20 pounds a batch during the first nine months of 1999, compared
with 18 during the same period in 1998. The number of comparable labs
in Riverside County fell from 17 to 7.

Pressured by law enforcement, cartels are moving some labs to other
parts of California and into Mexico, said Riverside County sheriff's
Sgt. Guy Wallace, who is assigned to the clearinghouse.

"It's irrelevant to them whether today they need to cook in San Jose
and tomorrow they have to cook in Hanford," said Katina Kypridakes of
the state Department of Justice. "It's (all about) convenience,
availability of personnel and the items necessary to carry out the
operation."

Inland narcotics officers suspect other factors may be at work. Local
drug agents spend most of their time finding and dismantling hundreds
of small labs. And cartels simply may have grown better at hiding labs.

Plenty of large labs remain undetected, drug agents suspect. The point
is made on a lonely stretch of road in dairy country near Chino in
November.

Thirty large black trash bags filled with thousands of empty
pseudoephedrine pill bottles litter the roadside. The waste included
three dozen empty solvent cans. A week before, a farmer cleaned up a
similar dump in the same area.

"There's a Mexican national lab here somewhere, real ... close," San
Bernardino County sheriff's Deputy Shannon Dicus said.

The Inland connection

>From California to the Carolinas, criminal investigations and drug
seizures have traced tons of methamphetamine back to the Inland
Empire, fueling the "source nation" reputation.

. In November, two cousins from Colima, Mexico, were sentenced in Los
Angeles to 27 years in federal prison as leaders of a methamphetamine
trafficking group. The organization headed by Rafael Anguiano Chavez
and Carlos Javier Martinez Anguiano had operated since 1996, federal
prosecutors said.

Meth was shipped from large labs in Apple Valley and Los Angeles
County to Dallas. From there, it moved to South Carolina, Chicago,
Atlanta, Miami and New York, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Lisa
Feldman. Fourteen others were convicted and sentenced to state or
federal prison as part of nationwide wiretap investigation that began
in Dallas, Feldman said.

. Also in November, police in Texas arranged to buy three pounds of
methamphetamine from a Riverside area man, said Sgt. Braxton Morton of
the Texas Department of Public Safety. The suspect, whom police
refused to identify, was arrested when he met undercover officers in
New Mexico to complete the transaction, Morton said.

. In December 1998, Riverside County sheriff's investigators found 50
pounds of marijuana and a methamphetamine lab at an apartment on
Burton Street in Riverside. Police allege Santos Peinado was
trafficking methamphetamine and marijuana to Lincoln, Neb. Peinado
pleaded not guilty to drug charges in Riverside County Superior Court.

. In January 1998, Riverside County Sheriff's investigators arrested
San Bernardino resident Juan Salas at his home.

Officers watched Salas for a year, according to a sheriff's report. In
that time, officers used information they gathered to make numerous
methamphetamine seizures as part of spinoff investigations, police
said.

When Salas was arrested, investigators found 10 pounds of
methamphetamine near the gas tank of a vehicle in his garage, the
report said. Two women were supposed to deliver the drugs to
Muscatine, Iowa. Detectives arrested the women and dismantled the Iowa
trafficking group, the report said. Salas was convicted on federal
drug charges in Iowa and was sentenced to prison, Rinks said.

. Since the mid-1990s, investigators in Des Moines, Iowa, have tracked
meth made in the Inland area directly to the city's streets. Des
Moines police Lt. Clarence Jobe estimated that 85 percent of
methamphetamine in the city comes from Southern California and Mexico.

Moving meth nationwide

Despite the Inland area's prominence as a "source nation," some of the
meth manufacturing trade is moving to other areas, such as the Central
Valley. The Inland region remains a prime distribution hub for meth
traffickers.

Most meth manufactured in California or Mexico comes through the
two-county region before its journey to other states begins, drug agents say.

It usually leaves California by highway.

On a November evening, CHP Officer Robert Mendenhall scanned the
traffic on Interstate 15 from his patrol car north of San Bernardino.
Dino, Mendehall's drug-sniffing German shepherd, barked noisily behind
the driver's seat.

Mendenhall looks for drug traffickers. Somewhere among the thousands
of cars and trucks, he says, someone is smuggling methamphetamine.

He is one of 16 officers assigned to a CHP interdiction team that
cruises interstates in Riverside and San Bernardino counties. The team
pulls over drivers for traffic violations as the first step in efforts
to find drug smugglers and other criminals.

They offer only general insights into the indicators they look for
when choosing cars or drivers to focus on. It can be something as
simple as driving a Ford, because that make has natural hiding places
between metal walls that make it easier to store drugs.

A car with out-of-state license plates and stickers for a local radio
station might pique Mendenhall's curiosity.

Sometimes after a stop, officers will ask drivers for permission to
hold their wrists for a quick pulse check. Drivers' pulse rates and
eyes can show signs of intoxication.

When there are enough indicators, Mendenhall asks permission to search
a vehicle. Drivers almost always consent, he said.

Two years ago, Mendenhall stopped a man in a U-Haul truck. His pulse
rate was about 180 beats per minute, more than twice the normal rate,
Mendenhall said.

"The driver was so nervous while I talked to him that he passed out,"
Mendenhall said.

The U-Haul truck contained 50 pounds of methamphetamine hidden in a
refrigerator.

Officers do not stop drivers based on a racial profile, said Sgt. Tom
Carmichael, who heads the CHP's Inland drug-interdiction program.
Nationwide, police agencies have been accused of using profiles that
cause them to stop a disproportionate number of minorities.

"We do not profile based on any racial element at all," he
said.

To thwart police, traffickers occasionally team up. If Mendenhall
shows interest in "a load car," a vehicle carrying drugs, another
trafficker driving a car without drugs might swerve dangerously to
divert attention.

"They try to bait us," Mendenhall said. "They know what we look like,
where we work."

Smugglers also hire women and children, or "rent-a-families," to
disguise their operations.

Caches of methamphetamine are increasingly common, but highway teams
also find marijuana, cocaine, heroin, guns and other contraband.

Given Southern Californians' passion for driving, it's not surprising
that traffickers usually smuggle methamphetamine out of the state in
cars and trucks. Thousands of vehicles leave California each year
carrying 1 to 20 pounds of methamphetamine in hidden compartments,
fuel tanks, spare tires or other crannies, police say.

Smugglers ship methamphetamine and money on buses, trains and
airplanes and via U.S. mail and package delivery companies. They pack
drugs in coffee grounds, mustard and other aromatic substances in bids
to get past a police dog's nose.

Often, the dogs aren't fooled. But the dogs can't be everywhere, and
the methods of smuggling drugs are as numerous and varied as the
traffickers themselves.

"Your imagination is the limit, because they do it every conceivable
way," said Sgt. Mike Bayer, a meth specialist with the San Bernardino
County Sheriff's Department.

Wholesale methamphetamine prices are about $5,000 a pound in
California. Traffickers keep loads small to cut their losses in case
police intercept a shipment.

The real fortune is in the Midwest and eastern states, where a pound
can fetch $14,000.

Statewide, CHP meth seizures increased from 350 pounds in 1996 to
2,064 pounds in 1998, officials said. Highway teams in Riverside and
San Bernardino counties found almost 25 percent of the total in 1998,
Carmichael said.

Sophisticated traffickers

Once methamphetamine reaches other states, cartels use a variety of
techniques to gain strongholds in areas with Hispanic populations,
state and federal authorities said.

For instance, meth traffickers have followed Latino workers who are
drawn to midwestern farms and meat-packing jobs, said Shirley
Armstead, spokeswoman for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in
St. Louis.

"The Mexican drug traffickers are coming to those areas where there is
a legitimate Mexican community, and they're blending in and
distributing their methamphetamine that way," she said.

Most methamphetamine in Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, Nebraska, South Dakota
and southern Illinois comes from California and Mexico, she said.

Compared to meat-packing, the pay is good. Workers recruited by
Mexican traffickers might receive a few hundred dollars a day to work
at a lab or drive a load of meth. Experienced cooks who run lab
operations earn much more.

Traffickers typically recruit workers from the same region in Mexico
where they are based, agents said. When low-level workers are
arrested, most remain mum, knowing cartel leaders kill informants'
relatives, Carmichael said.

"That's why they (cartels) use people they're comfortable with. They
have the leverage; they have the threat of death," Carmichael said.

Beyond such primitive but effective threats, the cartels use
increasingly sophisticated techniques to elude authorities. They
operate organizations out of the Los Angeles area, where they can
broker deals for chemicals and coordinate lab setups throughout the
state.

Police say it's a struggle to keep up. "They're very sophisticated in
their organizations," said Marie Fournier, a San Bernardino County
prosecutor who specializes in major narcotics-trafficking operations.
"Even within the organization, they'll compartmentalize information
from workers to protect the higher-up organizations.

To guard against infiltrators, she said, "they conduct
countersurveillance."

To neutralize electronic snoopers, "They'll dump their cell phones and
change pagers as a matter of course every couple of months."

The increasing sophistication makes some authorities pessimistic about
their ability to prevent proliferation of the multibillion-dollar business.

"I haven't seen it going down," said Sgt. Don Doster, a San Bernardino
County sheriff's deputy assigned to a regional task force that focuses
on drug traffickers using San Bernardino County's High Desert
highways. "We've seen an increase in the meth problem going out of
state.

"For every one stop that there's an interdiction, there's probably 10
of them that get by us."

The ultimate export

Sometimes traffickers end up transporting more than just white
crystals to other states. They also funnel know-how and criminal
entrepreneurial skills.

For instance, agents say one man from San Bernardino County can be
linked to the plague of methamphetamine labs in Missouri since the
mid-1990s.

In 1993, Willi H. Olsen brought San Bernardino County methamphetamine
cooker Kenny Marsh to _pendence, Mo., to help set up a manufacturing
operation. Olsen already was trafficking methamphetamine from
California and wanted to avoid the risks of transportation, police
said.

Marsh taught a man named Hugh Escobar to cook. Marsh became ill and
returned to California, where he died of heart failure caused by years
of meth use, Independence police said. Escobar kept cooking
methamphetamine and later taught Barry Fillpot, a Missouri man.
Fillpot showed a few others.

Olsen, Escobar and Fillpot were convicted on federal charges of
manufacturing and distributing methamphetamine and sentenced to
prison. By then, however, they had educated a new generation of
cooks.The recipe spread in an ever-expanding circle of methamphetamine
labs. "It just geometrically grows from there," said Detective Mike
Skaggs of the Independence, Mo., police.

In 1993, police in Independence busted a couple of labs. The number
was 53 in 1995 and 110 in 1997.

Skaggs believes most hatched from the work of Marsh and
Escobar.