http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-no...aids_dism.html


updated May 15, 2013 at 4:16 PM

Police arrested more than 30 people and searched two dozen locations in predawn raids Wednesday in Klamath County, dismantling a "large and violent" drug organization linked to Mexican drug cartels.
Law enforcement officials said it was the largest one-day roundup of drug-dealing suspects in recent Oregon history.
The investigation, "Operation Trojan Horse," was initiated after the bodies of two suspected drug traffickers from California were found shot and buried last October on a ranch outside Bonanza, a tiny community 25 miles east of Klamath Falls.
Wednesday's raids, led by Special Weapons and Tactics teams and involving 300 officers from local, state and federal agencies, hit homes and businesses in Klamath Falls, Chiloquin, Malin and Bonanza to break up a large methamphetamine trafficking organization. The group also trafficked in guns, authorities said. The investigation was orchestrated by the state Criminal Justice Division, a unit of Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum's office.
Police, who also searched 22 cars and trucks, seized 4 pounds of methamphetamine and 25 guns. Several children were turned over to state social service workers.
"Agents have developed evidence of connections between the meth ring located in Klamath County and Mexican drug cartels. The cartels have successfully made inroads into Oregon, particularly into some rural parts of the state," according to a statement from the state Justice Department.
Authorities wouldn't elaborate, and they wouldn't comment on the link between Wednesday's arrests and the October homicides. The Klamath County Sheriff's Office had identified the victims as Everardo Mendez-Ceja, 32, of Richmond, Calif., and Ricardo Jauregui, 38, of Oakley, Calif. No one has been arrested in that case.
Officials late Wednesday morning were still preparing a list of those arrested in the drug case.
Klamath County Sheriff Frank Skrah had to open a mothballed pod at the county jail to hold those arrested. Skrah said he had no estimate of the cost for the extra staffing and other operating costs.
The carefully coordinated raids launched at 3 a.m., when police expected most suspects to be asleep. Tactical units from Oregon State Police, several sheriff's departments and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms struck each location while heavily armed and in some instances using specialized SWAT vehicles.
At one location in downtown Klamath Falls, SWAT officers used explosives to blow the front door off a home. They quickly subdued at least two suspects as other officers moved in to begin searching for drugs and other evidence. At another location, police battered in the front door of a mobile home on an unlit dirt road near the Klamath Falls Airport. A woman arrested inside directed police to a small amount of methamphetamine and cash.
Suspects were ferried to the Klamath Falls Police Department, where they were plunked into plastic chairs arranged in a square on the agency's indoor basketball court.
The suspects, men and women, sat speechless, their handcuffed hands in front of them. Explorers, volunteer youth workers, were tasked with keeping an eye on them. The disheveled suspects hung their heads and looked at second-story interior windows but didn't say a word to one another.
The man police identified as the suspected ringleader sat up straight, glaring. The suspects were awaiting questioning before heading to jail and arraignments in Klamath County Circuit Court later in the day.
Local police said budget cuts in recent years eliminated their local drug team. Drug traffickers took advantage of that void, officials said.
"We have drug dealers in this community operating with impunity," said Jim Hunter, Klamath Falls Police Department chief.
Skrah agreed.
"These folks think this is like Andy in Mayberry," said Skrah, referring to the long-running television series featuring actor Andy Griffith as a small-town sheriff.
"Meth is rampant in the county here. Really, it's an epidemic in rural Oregon," said Rob Patridge, Klamath County district attorney.
Patridge said the drug sweep signaled that law enforcement is watching and acting.
"The message is we're not going to stand idly by and let drug dealers take over Klamath County," Patridge said.
Patridge said drug traffickers were to blame for violent crimes, thefts, burglaries and prostitution in the county of 66,000.
Local law enforcement officials said the major investigation couldn't have been accomplished with diminished local resources.
"We don't have the manpower to do the job," said Skrah.
Criminal Justice Division officials were joined in the investigation by the Klamath County Police Department, Klamath County Sheriff's Office, Oregon State Police, U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Homeland Security Investigations and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
Other agencies participating included the Medford Police Department, the Jackson County Sheriff's Office, Central Oregon Drug Enforcement team from Bend, Medford Area Drug and Gang Enforcement and the Rogue Area Drug Enforcement team from Grant Pass.

NOTE: This is ALL our leo's have time to deal with! NO WHERE left to hide! And now Oregon is going to give them Driver's licenses....US citizens have to show a birth certificate to get a license, but not illegal aliens!!! This is also the same area where the radical Islam Jihad camp was set up.