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Southern California Jail Guard Arrested With 104 Pounds of Fentanyl

Loaded on May 1, 2024 published in Prison Legal News May, 2024, page 10
Filed under: Guard Misconduct. Location: California.

The federal Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) announced on April 24, 2024, that a months-long California operation targeting the Mexican drug cartel once run by the man known as “el Chapo” had resulted in the arrests of 15 people allegedly involved in drug trafficking—including a former guard at the Riverside County jails. Jorge Oceguera-Rocha, 25, quit his job at Larry D. Smith Correctional Facility when he was arrested in September 2023 with a massive quantity of illegal drugs.

How massive? When cops pulled him over in his car on September 17, 2023, they found 104 pounds of fentanyl pills, as well as a gun. Agents said the amount of fentanyl was sufficient for 10 million doses. That quantity of narcotics netted the former guard a charge of possession with intent to distribute. He was also charged with possessing a firearm while in possession of narcotics. He was jailed in the county’s John J. Benoit Detention Center in lieu of $5 million bail.

The DEA said that “Operation Bling” netted 376 total pounds of methamphetamine, 1.4 kilograms of cocaine and seven firearms. The total value of all drugs seized was estimated at $16 million. The operation targeted the Sinaloa cartel, whose former head, Jose “el Chapo” Guzman, 67, was captured in Mexico in 2016 and extradited to face trafficking charges in the U.S. He was sentenced to life in prison in 2019 and placed in the federal Bureau of Prisons “supermax” lockup in Florence, Colorado.  

 

Source: KTLA

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