DTF Releases Information on Yesterday’s Double Bust
This is a press release from the Humboldt County Drug Task Force. The information has not been proven in a court of law and any individuals described should be presumed innocent until proven guilty:
On July 13th, 2020, at approximately 4:50 p.m., special agents with the Humboldt County Drug Task Force (HCDTF), with the assistance from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO), conducted two traffic stops in the Southern Humboldt area. Through their investigation, agents received information that local resident, Angelica Maria Vega, (age 40 from Fortuna, California) was going to meet unknown subjects from a Drug Trafficking Organization (DTO) based out of Southern California and Mexico. HCDTF has been investigating this DTO for several months and seized multiple pounds of heroin from this organization.
Agents watched Vega meet with the DTO associates near the Benbow Inn. After a brief interaction, Vega proceeded northbound on Highway 101 where agents continued to follow her. Eventually, HCDTF agents conducted a traffic stop on Vega near the Miranda/Maple Hills exit. Pursuant to Vega’s probation terms, and from observations of narcotics seen in plain view, agents searched Vega’s vehicle. Agents located approximately 2.5 pounds of suspected heroin packaged for sales. Vega was subsequently placed under arrest and booked into the Humboldt County Correctional Facility for transportation of controlled substances.
Shortly after Vega left the Benbow area, HCSO patrol deputies contacted the DTO subjects in the Benbow State Park day use area. The newly hired HCDTF narcotics detection K-9, “Bodhi”, was deployed and alerted to the presence of narcotics within one of the vehicles. An additional 6 pounds of suspected heroin was located in Benbow as well as approximately $4,000 in U.S. currency. This currency is believed to be profits from narcotics sales and was seized pending future asset forfeiture proceedings.
Upon police contact, the DTO subjects were identified as Guillermo Padilla (age 21 from Coachella, California) Kaina Galdamez (age 24 from Indio, California) and Edgar Melgar-Zamora (age 27 from Sinaloa, Mexico). All three subjects were cooperative and explained to agents they had just travelled from Southern California to deliver narcotics.
For officer and community safety concerns regarding COVID-19, agents elected to release these subjects and will forward their report to the Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office for prosecution.
Anyone with information related to this investigation or other narcotics related crimes are encouraged to call the Humboldt County Drug Task Force at 707-267-9976 or the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office Tip Line at 707-268-2539.
On July 13
Earlier Chapter:Double Dipping: DTF Searching Vehicle in Benbow and Vehicle Near Miranda Bridge–About 8.5 Pounds of Heroin Located
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Yes. I just came from Southern California to deliver illegal narcotics to your fine county. I will be back in a few days with more heroin. We want to keep Humboldt County fully supplied with our fine grade heroin. We are going to take full advantage of the Covid-19 and the state not wanting to lock people up for illegal distribution of dangerous narcotics. We will be back again and again. So nice to meet you. See you soon.
I can’t believe I spent 8 months in court for 25 plants.
I spent 2.5 years for 16
I know someone who got 10 years for a 10 lighter. Our state’s policies now are a disgrace.
6 pounds of heroin and they “elected to release the subjects”. WTF!!
Can’t have them catching the ‘vid in our jail.
Good ole so hum where Sinaloa cartel gets citied and released at the scene for 6 lbs of heroin , good ole liberals giving it to y’all , yet you hate trump lol maga 2020
Lol. Saw sleeepy joe today next to a podium banner that read “Build Back Better”! LMAO even sleepy joe speaks broken English!
Trump is the president… he’s the one in “charge” while every turd is let out of prison. We want to lock them up but Trump let’s em out… Why build a wall when Trump will just let the cartel members out in the US??? If he did his job COVID would have disappeared in April like he said and then these great enforcers of law could lock them up.
Trump is not responsible for the release of these suspects. I’m pretty sure he would be against it if he knew of it.
It was meant to be sarcasm, though I know it’s difficult for that to come through using only text.. I doubt anyone, left or right, thinks letting heroin dealers roam free is a good thing. This is clearly a local issue and although I’m fairly left on many issues letting cartel linked heroin importers go free isn’t one of them… Its always entertaining to see how quickly the comments devolve into national politics, just had to add my two cents.
Thanks for everything you do Kym!!!
Sorry, I’ve had a rash of eyebrow raising accusations against Trump lately. Possibly all of them were sarcasm. But I don’t think so. I’m not a fan but I hate misinformation more.
How’s Oklahoma?
🕯🌳They got released? What because they admitted they were selling poison to the residents of Humboldt? What idiot’s. Do they think there going to come back?🇺🇸🖖
sending their best?
Don’t tell that to Willie. Despite the fact that seemingly every month someone directly from Sinaloa gets busted with large amounts of hard drugs, Willie and other delusional liberals would try and have you believe that it’s white people with meth labs producing all the meth. Liberalism is a mental disorder.
Why exaggerate to make your point. Not all “liberals” agree with Willie , he’s on his own with this one in fact. Compression problem?
Maybe the CHP will send them an “Abatement Letter” with daily fines totaling millions of dollars along with environmental and human trafficking crimes.
“Pursuant to Vega’s probation terms” can we please, please stop pretending probation is an effective deterrent?
So we lock up cannabis growers but let Heroin dealers go scott free… why is nobody at the courthouse with protest signs demanding change. This is just plain wrong!! Welcome to Humboldt where weed will get you a jail cell, but posession of 6lbs of black tar heroin will get you a get out of jail free card…… Is anybody else concerned????
When was the last time anyone actually did jail time in Humboldt for nothing but weed?
6 years ago I did.
I’m also sure they’ll never see the outrageous fines the county is handing out, or anything close to it.
Supply and Demand. They’re just supplying a commodity to Humboldts insatiable junkie population. By the frequency and amounts of confiscated heroin I’d say Humboldt is in desperate need of rehab facilities way beyond what it presently has.
Keep on busting but until there is no demand for the poison it will keep coming up the freeway every day.
Exactly. &What person suffering with substance abuse has 10k for rehab?& What are there 8 beds at our only(?) rehab?
Medical pays for rehab now my sister works at water front recovery
I love how you are now threatened with jail for not wearing a mask or hanging with friends but heroin dealers can just walk away.. Fucking beautiful. Fuck your mask and your heroin.
Based
Heroin will kill many users. However people like you can kill dozens of innocent people. PLEASE go live on a boat if you are are too precious to wear a mask to protect others. YOU are the problem right now, not them.
Heroin addicts steal from and kill innocent people for their fix. This has been a problem long before covid and is only getting worse. Besides, you think the dopers are thinking about a mask while they are all hanging out sharing needles and shooting junk in their arms? Ever think unchecked drug use perpetuates the spread of all diseases, including covid 19? They have been the problem and will continue to be the problem.
Covid-19 has been very very good to me 😂😂😂😂😂
The real question is were they wearing masks?
NO bail for aliens
None of the above commenters understand business. Business is not really a crime.
So Edgar was from Sinaloa and the law sees no possible connection between him and the Sinaloa cartel???
I find this whole thing absolutely disgusting. Using covid as an excuse to grab drugs and money and let these low-lives head back to SoCal and Mexico.
Grow some damned balls Humboldt.
Seriously, some ignoramus stuff… I have lived elsewhere, even though I was born here and there is, in my opinion a complete lack of understanding of cartels here. Oh, I am also fairly liberal, but stupid? Nope.
I have to go to work in healthcare and risk infection of covid, many of my patients are in due to abscesses from shooting junk. The cops need to do their effing jobs like the rest of us have to do. this is unexcusable letting somebody walk with POUNDS of heroin
Yep
Instead of the weekly health officer and Honsal interviews on covid, can someone ask Honsal and Maggie what’s up with their official policy of releasing cartel heroin smugglers? I’d like to read that interview, if not can we defund the humboldt county court system? At least the cops are actually doing their jobs
I am right there with ya Mike!! So over the catch and release…as a health care worker it sickens and saddens me that I have to risk the rona everyday but these idiot dealers and junkies just get a see ya next time release!
where is our daily update on heroin deaths
He’s back in Mexico right now sipping on a margarita. We can spend how much money on this investigation only to let the obvious leader of the base camp go?!
Yep spend all this money raiding pot farms creating sanctioned bum camps all over arcata and eureka but we can’t afford to keep a guy with 6 pounds of black tar in his possession. How many lives would be destroyed by that six lbs?!?! More then the few that could come from a few guys in jail potentially catching corona virus. In the end if we just have stores where people could buy whatever crazy drug professionally made they wanted in a taxed and regulated system we would have more jobs, social services and the cops could actually focus on helping people instead of putting them in cuffs. Do we actually believe drug addiction and cartels and the whole system will just stop?? Why not try and find a real solution instead of the drug bust hamster wheel. I guess the for profit prison system and all the people that profit from all the arrests would like that.
Why should any of us follow any law or respect any police officer? They are letting go young guys from faraway places who are bringing pounds of heroin into our county. They are releasing them on site. Why should we respect any laws now? Let’s just do whatever we want, everybody! That is what I get after reading this….unless they arrest these officers and whoever gave them orders to release the heroin dealers. THEY should be charged with obstruction of justice! I mean…WTF?! We pay these officers to do this?!
Stop letting them out! Maybe that would slow the flood of drugs.
Is ICE telling them to let them go? Or are they not calling ICE? Because this is literally what ICE is for.
🕯🌳Don’t forget that’s your favorite “not my potus’s” band of Merry men.🤯
“Your favorite”? so, if I don’t support customs stopping cartels doing narcotic smuggling and human trafficking that decimated countless American, and Mexican life’s I must be a trump supporter ? Glad to know where you stand willie, if there is one thing that human beings should be able to agree on, it’s that the cartels are the personification of evil. Unless you’re willie.
If Americans weren’t so addicted to drugs they wouldn’t have any one to sell their poison to. I guess the reasons for heroin addiction are many and varied but it comes right down to them and their purchasing of said drugs.
Get it together junkies, you’re the problem. Seek help.
Ahem…
California’s good ol sanctuary law prohibits the servants of the state from inquiring about immigration status!
Total bs!
They are not calling ice, but on that thought, you could.
The local leos probably weighed their options.
Since letting all those aholes eat for free in jail, meet new hum druggies to negative contract with, and spread the new strain of mexi vid all seemed like bad ideas, they let them go back south. All with the exception of her…she’s still kickin it in fortuna waiting for the next drop like bait. Let’s just hope they tailed those others back to Sinaloa. Reconnaissance!
no california likes to take the position of aiding and abetting
They don’t make em like they used to
This is just unfuckin believable!
[Edit: without proof, this information is better passed to law enforcement instead of posted here] They also have grows in their backyard that are definitely larger than being for their own use. FPD last year saw them and did nothing. Yet, you cannot grow within the city limits. But, you can shoot up with the free needles handed out to the addicts
ZERO TOLERANCE.
Gosh, I’m retired but was disabled before being retired and therefore only got about 60% of the benefits that I would have if I had not been disabled before my retirement age. It’s the American Way.
So, running drugs might be a good option. It’s obvious there are no consequences except the occasional inconvenience of a police stop. That would make my life less boring too. These golden years are so much fun and think of all the interesting people I might meet and the fun things to do. And I could make some serious change too. What a great idea! Put me in contact with the cartel. /s but just barely.
Onrust, just like Clint Eastwood in The Mule.
You took the words right out of my mouth For Sure. Ole Clint was good in that movie. A lot of people didn’t like it, but I enjoyed it.
I’ll take a Humboldt judge’s wrath over Jeffe’s wrath any day. I find it odd that no one addresses the repercussions that the mules and, most importantly, their families have to face back where it come from. Y’all got a lot of comments that do not address the obvious but then I’m digressing by even seeing the forest for the silly trees and mentioning it.
Actually I mentioned that the ones they let free with the 4.5lbs a few days ago would be safer in jail than telling the cartels they lost the 4.5
The mules are disposable as are our addicted.
War on Drugs =
Fast & Furious
Iran Contra
and all Gary Webb told us.
Good for politicians, deadly for citizens, both suppliers and consumers.
Cartels don’t care if you lose a load as long as they believe you’re loyal. It doesn’t cut into their profit margin at all but is a good way to weed out idiots and unloyal people. That shit costs them penny’s but makes them thousands. If they don’t believe your story or believe they can’t trust you they’ll burn you alive and hang your family from a bridge to prove a point. In my opinion any cartel member caught engaging in criminal activity on American soil should be sent to GITMO.
Yeah I’m about tired of these fu#%tards jumping the border, selling poison rolling up to your local laundromat in a 30/40/50k vehicle. Liberals paradise! #break out the vote
//I’ll take a Humboldt judge’s wrath over Jeffe’s wrath any day.//
Amen to that.
Was it ever, in America, a capital crime to traffic heroin?
with all the pounds of heroin they “catch-N-release” there is still no shortage of supply. What are the cops doing with it after they confiscate it? And,yes. It is simply good business to let them go. That way they just bring more
Should be a capital crime to traffic hard drugs. The cops that keep letting them go should be fired and replaced with ones that will do their job, right up to the idiots at the top who make the stupid release policies.
🕯🌳What do they actually do with all that heroin they get? Hmmmmmm. Use it or resale it or destroyed? Hmmmmmm??????
. Her pic, her arrest date, her release date, and the county this took place in… tee shirt for a national company.
Advertise Humboldt County.
Maybe there is no problem, and everything is perfect. All in divine order.
We need more ‘narco tourism’ like these guys…
Dope mules buy gas, eat at our restaurants, stay at hotels and visit local businesses. Hope they come back soon!
Defund the police, open borders, no bail, abolish ICE, confiscate guns, remember to vote blue.
Definitely gonna vote blue..The great orange liar and chief is going down the drain. Good riddance..
You all get the society you deserve. Drugboldt County with grow dozer driving weed pushers on every hill. Feed the addicts, make grande dinero. It’s the county way. The dope based lifestyle is beautiful for America. Multigenerational pot farmers make great citizens. Cash and carry. Sex, drugs, reggae since the sixties. Why would anyone be surprised if heroin dealers and users follow in the footsteps of the immoral, debased “culture ” you have carefully tended over five decades? You reap what you sow, libs. Choke on it.
Yup, heroin is totally only a problem here in Humboldt.
Hey you’re leaving out the most potent drug of all, alcohol. How many lives are lost every day because of our socially accepted drug? See how you just skipped over that? I’ve never seen anyone so out of control on any drug other than alcohol.
Thought I would make all you [edit] aware jeff sessions lost his runoff race to a football coach, big time today. why is this relevant. ?
Abatement letter should do the trick
No kidding, if the fine folks at the planning department had some satellite imagery of this there would surely be hell to pay. At least $10-40,000 a day no doubt. Humboldt county’s own gestapo, bunch of under qualified over worked incapable enforcers. Not sure when the planning department became the ultimate enforcement agency in this county but shit needs to change!!!! Seems like a seriously mixed up system with someone like this walking free one way or the other, ankle bracelet? Stay in the area or see ya next time? Losing faith in this fine county and it’s motives.