April 27, 2022 – Ventura County, Ca. by Robert L. McCullough – The epidemic of fatal drug overdoses sweeping through Southern California has—out of apparent necessity—become the focus of the Ventura County Sheriff’s Office Narcotics Street Team and the VCSD Special Crimes Unit as they continue to deal with an inflowing tidal wave of dangerous drugs entering the county from Mexico.
Evidence of that came on the afternoon of April 20th when, according to VCSD spokesman Sergeant Odilon Malagon, the Narcotics Street Team “developed information” indicating that a Mexican drug trafficking organization was flooding the county with “both bulk and user quantities of fentanyl, heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, and counterfeit pills laced with fentanyl.” Points of distribution for this activity were in the Ventura County communities of Simi Valley, Moorpark, and Thousand Oaks.
Ongoing investigation by narcotics detectives led to the identification of Jose Alberto Vega-Sanchez, a resident of Montclair, Ca. as “actively involved in the delivery of narcotics” throughout the county. Pursuant to that determination, on April 20th Vega-Sanchez was contacted and detained in a public parking lot in the City of Thousand Oaks. Pursuant to that contact, a search of his vehicle was conducted, leading to the discovery and seizure of “over six ounces of fentanyl, two ounces of black tar heroin, 700 counterfeit oxycodone pills, three ounces of cocaine, over one pound of methamphetamine” and a significant total of U.S. currency.
Malagon indicated that the drugs seized “had the potential to kill 300,000 people,” indicating the urgency with which the VCSD is working to “stem the tide of this epidemic.”
Vega-Sanchez was transported to Ventura County Jail, where he was booked on multiple narcotics charges, with his bail set at $50,000.
– by Robert L. McCullough
Photo: Courtesy of VCSD Narcotics Street Team
