Photo: Stock Image
On the morning of June 27, 2023, deputies from Camarillo Patrol Services spotted a suspiciously-parked vehicle at a local business. When the cops approached, an unidentified male associated with the vehicle promptly left the area upon noticing the presence of law enforcement and could not be apprehended.
The following day, deputies from the Camarillo Directed Enforcement Unit (DEU) conducted a thorough check of the vicinity and observed a male individual retrieving items from within the earlier-identified vehicle. Deputies engaged with the individual, later identified as 21-year-old Greeley, Colorado resident Jeremiah Rangel. Also at the scene was another Colorado resident, 42-year-old Brian Maldonado. A field sobriety test was conducted, whereupon both men were detained on suspicion of being under the influence of a controlled substance.
With detectives attached to the Camarillo Special Enforcement Unit and the Ventura County Fentanyl and Overdose Crimes units arriving on the scene, it was determined that Rangel and Maldonado were renting a hotel room nearby and were allegedly involved in narcotics trafficking.
According to Ventura County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Sr. Deputy Steve Krupnik, a search warrant was quickly obtained for both their hotel room and their vehicle, which led to the discovery of “three sizable blocks believed to contain a controlled substance, approximately 12,000 Oxycodone pills, and five pounds of fentanyl, more than 2,330,000 times the lethal dosage of 2 milligrams.”
