2000 Jardin Drive
Ventura County – While navigating the chain of supply and demand in the illicit drug business may have a significant profit incentive for those expert enough to survive the sturm and drang of a highly competitive marketplace, the arrests of Oxnard residents Ricardo Moreno, 42, and Gabriela Magana, 23, indicate that—like most risky investments—where there is significant “upside potential” there is a concomitant downside risk.
Moreno and Magana undoubtedly discovered that eternal verity when, in the pre-dawn hours of February 18th, Oxnard Police Department’s SWAT team knocked on the front door of Moreno’s Jardin Drive residence in the service of a search warrant.
According to Ventura County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Sgt. Jason Hendren, the VCSD Narcotics Bureau and detectives at the Oxnard Police Department had ample prior “information on methamphetamine and heroin sales” taking place at the residence to justify the issuance of multiple search warrants of the home and associated vehicles.
Those suspicions were apparently justified, as a search of the residence “located over a pound of heroin, almost two ounces of cocaine, a loaded stolen firearm, and a large sum of U.S. currency concealed inside the residence.”
Along with the drugs, guns, and money, a plethora of stolen property was also found, including “flat screen televisions in the original packaging, several sound entertainment systems, numerous power and air tool sets in original packaging, stolen guitars, and stolen industrial rental equipment.”
Pursuant to the discovery of the purloined property, detectives summoned additional help from the Port Hueneme Police Department, the Oxnard Police Department, and property crimes investigators attached to the VCSD.
Hendren reported that these efforts enabled “the return of 76 pieces of stolen property valued at over $12,000 to the victims.”
Moreno was arrested at the scene and transported to Ventura County Jail, where he was booked on charges of possession of narcotics for sale, maintaining a place for selling or using narcotics, possession of stolen property, and being a prohibited person in possession of a firearm and ammunition, with his bail set at $250,000…enough to impact the bottom line of even the most profitable business enterprise.
For her part, Magana was booked on charges of being under the influence of a controlled substance.
