National Drug Intelligence Center   Los Angeles High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Drug Market Analysis 2009   April 2009

Production

Mexican DTOs and criminal groups in Jalisco, Sonora, and Sinaloa, Mexico, produce most of the methamphetamine available in the Los Angeles HIDTA region. However, Mexican DTOs and criminal groups and, to a lesser extent, Caucasian and Asian criminal groups and independent producers in the HIDTA region produce large quantities of methamphetamine. National Seizure System (NSS) data indicate that law enforcement officers seized more methamphetamine laboratories in 2008 (49) than in 2007 (39).8 In each of these years, most of the seized laboratories were located in Los Angeles and San Bernardino Counties.9 (See Table 3.)

Source National Seizure System, current as of March 3, 2009.
*Small laboratories are capable of producing less than 2 pounds of methamphetamine per production cycle. Major laboratories are capable of producing 2 to 9 pounds of methamphetamine per production cycle. Superlabs are capable of producing over 10 pounds of methamphetamine per production cycle.

Most of the methamphetamine laboratory seizures recorded in the Los Angeles HIDTA counties in 2008 involved small-scale laboratories capable of producing less than 2 pounds of methamphetamine per production cycle; however, seizures of major laboratories and superlabs--laboratories that can yield large quantities of methamphetamine per production cycle--increased in 2008 (see Table 3). NSS data indicate that seven methamphetamine superlabs were seized in the Los Angeles HIDTA region during 2008 (3 in Los Angeles County, 3 in Riverside County, and 1 in San Bernardino County). The increase in the number of large-scale methamphetamine production laboratories seized is most likely associated with decreased availability of Mexican ice methamphetamine and the rising availability of precursor chemicals obtained through organized "smurfing" operations in the Los Angeles HIDTA region and in neighboring states. The smurfing of pseudoephedrine products from retail stores and pharmacies has emerged as a serious problem in the Los Angeles HIDTA region (primarily in the Los Angeles and Orange County areas). Some organized groups involved in smurfing pseudo­ephedrine are using Global Positioning System (GPS) devices to locate pharmacies to purchase pseudoephedrine or meeting places to deliver the pseudoephedrine to methamphetamine laboratory operators. The California Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement (BNE) reports that organized smurfing groups in Phoenix and Las Vegas transport pseudoephedrine products to the Los Angeles area and sell them to clandestine methamphetamine laboratory operators.

Mexican DTOs and criminal groups based in the Mexican states of Guerrero, Michoacán, Nayarit, Oaxaca, and Zacatecas produce most of the marijuana available in the Los Angeles HIDTA region; however, Mexican and, to a much lesser extent, Asian and Caucasian DTOs and criminal groups also produce significant quantities of domestic marijuana in the Los Angeles HIDTA region. Los Angeles HIDTA data indicate that law enforcement officials seized a total of 800,873 cannabis plants from indoor and outdoor grow sites in the region in 2008, an increase from the 538,493 plants reported seized in 2007. Growers cultivate the largest number of cannabis plants outdoors--usually on federal public lands in the San Bernardino, Cleveland, and Angeles National forests. (See Table 4.) To further compound the threat, many traffickers (mostly Mexican traffickers) conceal their cannabis crops and methamphetamine laboratories or laboratory waste under trees10 or mix their crops within other thick vegetation in these forests. Los Angeles Police Department officers report that these growers increasingly are armed and/or booby-trap their cultivation sites, and they often use fertilizers that are poisonous to humans, posing a serious threat to tenders and law enforcement as well as other individuals who happen upon the sites. Los Angeles HIDTA data also suggest that growers are cultivating more cannabis indoors (including hydroponically) than they had previously--usually in private residences--which very likely is in response to an increasing demand for high-potency marijuana both in and outside the HIDTA region. Law enforcement reporting suggests that Asian DTOs and criminal groups are converting an increasing number of upscale homes in cities within the Los Angeles HIDTA region into cannabis grow operations. The growers that manage one operation may also operate other grows nearby or be affiliated with those who operate those nearby grow sites. Other traffickers who become aware of the indoor grows increasingly are breaking in to steal cannabis plants and/or processed marijuana from these sites, elevating the number of burglaries, robberies, and related violent crime in areas that previously had limited drug-related violent crime.

Source: Los Angeles High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area.

Law enforcement officers with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reportedly also arrest a number of Asian cannabis cultivators crossing the U.S.-Canada border, some of whom are traveling from Canada to the Los Angeles area to further their cannabis cultivation operations. Once in Los Angeles, the cultivators typically educate other Asian traffickers on how to properly pollinate cannabis plants that yield high-potency cannabis (some with THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol) levels ranging from 15 to 20%) before returning home. These experienced Asian growers from Canada reportedly prefer to travel to Los Angeles and other U.S. locations to train their counterparts on how to cultivate high-potency cannabis because they believe it is less risky than smuggling large quantities of marijuana across the Northern Border for distribution.

African American and Hispanic criminal groups and street gangs, often Bloods and Crips sets, are the principal crack and PCP producers in the Los Angeles HIDTA region. They typically convert powder cocaine into crack cocaine in low-income, inner-city neighborhoods as needed for distribution, primarily to avoid the stiff penalties associated with distribution of large quantities of the drug. They most often produce PCP in the Los Angeles, Compton, and North Long Beach areas of Los Angeles County and, more recently, in the high desert areas of San Bernardino County for local and national-level distribution. Some Los Angeles-based traffickers are supplying PCP to traffickers in other U.S. drug markets--notably Omaha and Washington, D.C. For example, in January 2008, law enforcement officers in Tucumcari, New Mexico, seized 6.25 gallons of PCP that was produced in Los Angeles and destined for distribution in Washington, D.C. However, NSS data on PCP laboratory seizures in the Los Angeles HIDTA region indicate that PCP traffickers may have been producing the drug less frequently in 2008 than in 2007. (Table 5.)

Source: National Seizure System, current as of January 29, 2009.

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Transportation

Mexican DTOs and criminal groups, the principal drug transporters to the Los Angeles HIDTA region, exploit Mexican cartel-controlled plazas11 along the California-Mexico border to smuggle wholesale quantities of illicit drugs into the Los Angeles HIDTA region. Once in southern California, these traffickers as well as those who work on their behalf and various other traffickers--African American, Caucasian, Colombian, Salvadoran, Canadian, Chinese, Jamaican, Vietnamese, and other Asian criminal groups--transport illicit drugs to and through the HIDTA region, frequently overland on Interstates 5 and 15. They prefer these interstates because they can easily access each upon entrance at southern California and northwestern U.S.-Canada POEs and link to numerous other U.S. drug markets by an intricate array of intersecting interstates and other roadways. For example, traffickers transport significant quantities of ice methamphetamine, Mexican black tar heroin, cocaine, and marijuana on I-15 from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. In addition, on April 12, 2008, New Mexico Department of Public Safety officers working on a New Mexico HIDTA initiative seized 3 kilograms of cocaine in Gallup, New Mexico. The drugs allegedly originated in Los Angeles and were being transported to Tulsa on I-40 concealed in duffel bags on a commercial bus. Traffickers also use similar means to transport drug proceeds in the reverse direction. Their versatility in transporting illicit drugs to and drug proceeds from the HIDTA region demonstrates the Los Angeles HIDTA's significance as a national-level illicit drug transportation hub and transshipment center.

According to data from the HIDTA's Los Angeles Clearinghouse Domestic Highway Enforcement Unit, most of the drugs seized en route to or departing from the Los Angeles HIDTA region in 2008 involved private vehicles (319), rental vehicles (185), and tractor-trailers (42). A significant number of these seizures (144) involved vehicles equipped with false compartments. These 546 highway seizures collectively involved almost 26,000 pounds of marijuana (including some high-potency marijuana), 1,000 kilograms of cocaine, 200 pounds of methamphetamine, over 32 kilograms of heroin, nearly 9 gallons of PCP, and more than 490,000 MDMA tablets.

Footnotes

8. This figure does not include the number of chemical, equipment, or dumpsite seizures, which are also associated with methamphetamine production.
9. Even though there was an increase in laboratories seized in 2008 over 2007, the number of seizures is still significantly less than in 2006 (102) or 2005 (106).
10. Some of these growers tie the tops of the trees together military-style to avoid aerial detection by law enforcement.
11. A plaza is a geographic area in which drug smuggling is controlled by a drug trafficking organization (DTO).

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