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Calif. men caught in local drug bust

By LEE WILLIAMS
lwilliams@TheCitizenNews.com

Two California men were hauled off to federal jail Friday after drug agents raided their motor home and storage facility and found Home Depot boxes that contained something other than household goods.

Salvador Rivero, 25, and Alberto Ledesma of Santa Ana, Calif., were taken into custody at an undisclosed location by agents of the Fayette County Drug Suppression Task Force and the Drug Enforcement Agency Group 1 out of Atlanta, officials said. One of the pair was armed, authorities said.

Rivero and Ledesma were arrested after more than 600 pounds of marijuana and about $80,000 to $90,000 in cash were found in their possession, officials said.

“On Wednesday, we received a tip from the Los Angeles Police Department that a motor home was in the metro area at a hotel,” said Capt. Mike Pruitt, supervising agent in charge. “The motor home, they believed through their investigation, would be delivering and picking up a quantity of drugs and money, so we were able to go out and locate the motor home at a hotel parking lot.”

Agents set up a surveillance from 5:30 a.m. Thursday until they spotted the alleged drug offenders.

“We were on a 21-hour surveillance of the vehicle, which ultimately led us to the location of where they were picking this stuff up that was going to go back to California, and it led us back to a residence where we located approximately 600 pounds of marijuana,” Pruitt said.

Bricks of marijuana were found wrapped in green plastic inside of three Home Depot boxes neatly stacked beside exercise equipment in a workout room. Contraband was found in a storage facility and motor home, authorities said.

Agents had to use caution while apprehending the out-of-towners, Lt. Jody Thomas indicated.

“One of the offenders was armed with a handgun,” Thomas said. “He was taken into custody without further incident.”

Atlanta has become the hub for drug distribution which is why large quantities of drugs often are confiscated in and around the Atlanta metro area, officials said. The drugs are shipped from Mexico, then to Texas, California and finally Atlanta.

The drugs then are dispersed to various counties in the Atlanta metro area, officials said. Why?

“The market is better,” Pruitt said.

Pruitt knows this fact well, but it still surprises him when his agents confiscate large quantities of drugs from drug dealers.

“It’s unbelievable,” Pruitt said. “I ran the drug squad from ‘89 to ‘92, and the drugs in the Atlanta area was nothing compared to what it is now. I came back in 2000. I’ve been running this for the last five years, and the amount of dope is unbelievable."

The task force has confiscated $11.5 million in cash alone from drug busts within the last three years. In 2004, the task force has made 204 drug arrests; seized 574.5 pounds of marijuana; 170 kilos of cocaine; seized 67.2 pounds of ice, a highly-pure and expensive form of methamphetamine; raided one meth lab in Fayette County; and seized eight ecstasy pills, Pruitt said.

But their work didn’t end there. From January to April 2005, the task force seized 50.4 pounds of “ice,” a form of methamphetamine, Pruitt added.

“Atlanta has become the hub of the eastern seaboard, so the dope that’s coming in here is just unbelievable,” Pruitt said. “It’s extremely scary.”