Access #: 517156
Headline: A new cash crop: The Fresno aea is known for meth labs as well as orchards and vineyards.
Date: 01/23/00
Day: Sunday
Credit: The Press -Enterprise
Section: A Section
Zone: ALL ZONES
Page: A09
Byline: Raymond Smith
Notes: Sidebar to "Inland drug empire"
Subject: CRIME; NARCOTICS
Keys: SOURCE NATION; METHAMPHETAMINE ; METH LABS; FRESNO
Type: SERIES
Length: 25.7
FRESNO
On the side of a darkened two-lane road in Fresno County, a team
dressed in camouflage gathers in a fire department parking lot.
For miles around, rows of fruit trees and grapevines are emblems
of cash crops that drive the local economy. But orchards and
vineyards also harbor a clandestine industry that has been a
money-making fixture since it crept into the Central Valley more
than a decade ago.
Methamphetamine .
In barns and houses, sheds and silos, Mexican drug traffickers
secretly cook a white-crystal stimulant that will eventually
course through the veins of users across California and the
United States. After police agencies in Southern California
joined together to combat methamphetamine , cartels started
making more meth in the Central Valley.
But with its smaller population, the Central Valley cannot muster
the police deterrent that traffickers face in urban Southern
California. Isolated farms and the region's large Hispanic
population also give Mexican traffickers valuable cover.
"They fit in so well here," said Robert Pennal, special agent
with the Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement in Fresno. "They want to
minimize their contact with law enforcement, and they want
seclusion."
On this brisk October night, Pennal and members of the meth-lab
task force he oversees prepare for a reconnaissance mission. The
target is a house in a vineyard. Agents followed a known drug
trafficker to the property and have seen more than a dozen other
men staying at the home.
There is no evidence they are farming. Pennal thinks they might
be making meth.
A five-man team will creep through the vineyard and use a
night-vision scope to pierce the darkness. They are looking for
evidence of drug activity, which can be used as probable cause for
a search warrant.
The operation could be dangerous. Meth manufacturers often are
armed with assault rifles and other weapons.
And guard dogs alert traffickers when someone is approaching. A
bark can send lab workers into the night with flashlights and guns,
scanning for intruders.
"You become one with the dirt," Agent Randy Buford said.
As the crawl begins, Buford and a handful of agents in vehicles
fan out along roads on the property's perimeter.
Slinking on the ground in the dark can be nerve-wracking for the
crawl team. But backup agents on the perimeter endure another
torment.
Stray too close, and you might tip off the suspects. Too far out,
and a partner could die by the time you arrive to help.
"It's so hard, because you've got to stay away. But goddang it,
you want to be close in case it goes to hell," Buford said.
At 10:48 p.m., almost a half-hour after the crawl began, Buford's
radio hisses.
"We're three-quarters of the way, and everything is still OK," a
voice whispers.
At 11:07 p.m., the team nears the house. Time drags, then stops
dead at 11:52 p.m.
A noise on the radio sucks the breath out of agents on the
perimeter teams. They hear five clicks over the radio, a signal
that suspects are near.
Agents in the vineyard cannot speak for fear of being detected.
For five minutes, Buford sits in nervous silence.
"Come on, guys," he implores, thinking out loud.
Ten minutes more. No word.
"Come on, guys! This is the worst part," he said.
It seems like an eternity. Nine more minutes pass before Pennal's
voice breaks the quiet. The crawl team is approaching the pickup
point. The danger is done.
Buford sighs.
Later, Pennal says the close call was actually the wind blowing a
door open and closed. Agents raided the house a few weeks later and
found a marijuana processing operation.
Police discovered the first Mexican cartel lab in the Central
Valley in 1989, Pennal said. Soon after the discovery in Kern
County, agents found a large operation in Tulare County that used
identical glassware and filter material.
Agents have found cartel labs in the area ever since. In 1998,
20 of the 52 labs in the region were large-scale operations that
could cook more than 20 pounds of methamphetamine in a day or
two, according to state drug-lab statistics. Some labs make more
than 100 pounds at a time.
As the Central Valley methamphetamine problem grows, agents use
new techniques to catch traffickers who change their operations to
avoid detection, Pennal said. Investigators follow trails from the
clues left behind when meth makers dump lab waste.
Now, Pennal is organizing an expanded team funded with federal
money received when the region was designated a High Intensity Drug
Trafficking Area.
The money will add six agents to fight meth in the Central Valley.
Agents will have resources to do more than just react to labs,
Pennal said. "We're going to be able to conduct a lot of follow-up
to dismantle these organizations," he said.
Eric Vilchis10/07/2018