Sinaloa cartel members arrested in SoCal drug bust operation

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. (KABC) -- Members of a Sinaloa cartel were arrested in a months-long, multi-agency investigation into an international organized crime ring involving drug trafficking, Ventura County sheriff's officials announced Tuesday.

Photos of 15 suspects arrested were shown at a press conference held by the Ventura County Sheriff's Department.

Sheriff's officials said they are all from a Sinaloa cartel, some of them high-ranking members.

In addition to the arrests, they said they seized $10 million worth of drugs and substantial amounts of cash and weapons.

The drugs, they said, were destined for Southern California and parts beyond.

"They're importing meth, they're importing heroin and coke. They're supplying our streets with it and a lot of other streets," said Ventura County Undersheriff Gary Pentis. "This is an organization where the dope was coming straight from the Sinaloa area to storage areas in L.A. and then transferring from there. All this dope wasn't coming to Ventura County, just a portion of it, where we intersected it in a street-level case in its onset."

Among the drugs seized were about 285 pounds of methamphetamine, 121 pounds of cocaine, 6 pounds of fentanyl and 600 counterfeit oxycodone pills.