National Drug Intelligence Center   Los Angeles High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Drug Market Analysis 2008   June 2008   UNCLASSIFIED

Strategic Drug Threat Developments

• Highly organized and very sophisticated Mexican drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) and criminal groups control the most significant drug operations in the HIDTA region and an increasing number of drug markets throughout the country; this expansion is facilitated through their enhanced cooperative efforts with Los Angeles-based street gangs, prison gangs and, to a lesser extent, outlaw motorcycle gangs (OMGs) that are increasingly joining forces with Mexican DTOs and criminal groups for economic gain. (See text box in Drug Trafficking Organizations section.)
   
• The migration of Los Angeles-based street gangs from inner-city neighborhoods--particularly those in Los Angeles County--to more suburban and rural communities within Los Angeles County (notably the Antelope Valley area) as well as San Bernardino and Riverside Counties and many other drug markets throughout the country has escalated dramatically.
   
• A large and increasing number of street gangs that distribute illicit drugs in the Los Angeles HIDTA region have military-trained gang members with knowledge of and access to sensitive military equipment and weapons; their increasing reliance on military-trained gang members to facilitate their drug enterprises threatens law enforcement safety because most officers are not similarly trained to protect themselves and others.
   
• The increasing demand for high-potency marijuana throughout the United States has contributed to increases in domestic cannabis cultivation, both indoors (primarily by Asian groups) and outdoors (principally by Mexican groups) in the Los Angeles HIDTA region, a principal source area for domestically produced marijuana.
   
• Asian (particularly Vietnamese) DTOs and criminal groups in the Los Angeles HIDTA region increasingly are producing high-potency marijuana in a number of upscale suburban neighborhoods at which high levels of black mold (see text box regarding black mold in Production section.) and carbon dioxide also are discovered; many of the growers also booby-trap the homes and reroute the electrical wiring, which further threatens law enforcement safety.
   
• The increased visibility of violent cartels in Mexico and near the California-Mexico border has contributed to shifts in drug smuggling patterns and, occasionally, drug flow from Mexico into and through the Los Angeles HIDTA region.
   
• Mexican ice methamphetamine--the availability of which has somewhat diminished--is the principal type available in the Los Angeles HIDTA region; however, the Los Angeles HIDTA region is one of the most prominent domestic source areas for methamphetamine available throughout the western portion of the country and in many eastern drug market areas.
   
• Many DTOs and criminal groups in the Los Angeles HIDTA region that distribute illicit drugs also commit various other crimes--murder, alien smuggling, kidnapping, and weapons smuggling--to further their criminal enterprises and generate profits.
   
• Conflicting state and federal laws regarding marijuana distribution and use for serious illnesses are increasingly difficult for law enforcement officers in the HIDTA region to enforce; in January 2008 distributors in Los Angeles became first in the state to use the protections offered through state medicinal marijuana laws to dispense marijuana through vending machines--known as Anytime Vending Machines (AVMs)--that resemble candy and other snack vending machines.

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HIDTA Overview

The Los Angeles HIDTA region--composed of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino Counties--is one of the most populous regions in the country with almost 17 million residents¹ in over 32,000 square miles of territory. It is a principal production, transportation, and distribution center for illicit drugs available in the HIDTA region and in many other U.S. drug markets supplied by traffickers in the Los Angeles area, including Atlanta, Georgia; Chicago, Illinois; Cleveland, Ohio; Denver, Colorado; Las Vegas, Nevada; Memphis, Tennessee; Miami, Florida; New York, New York; Omaha, Nebraska; Phoenix, Arizona; Salt Lake City, Utah; Seattle and Yakima, Washington; St. Louis, Missouri; Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Washington, D.C.

Drug traffickers often exploit the region's unique geographic composition for illicit drug production--typically methamphetamine production, cannabis cultivation, crack conversion, and PCP (phencyclidine) production. The Inland Empire, which encompasses both San Bernardino and Riverside Counties, is largely a sparsely populated rural area. (See Figure 1 in Preface.) San Bernardino is the largest county by area in the United States² and Riverside ranks fourth, which makes detection of methamphetamine laboratories and cannabis fields difficult. (See Figure 2 in Production section.) Traffickers can maintain robust cannabis crops because of ideal climate conditions in the HIDTA region. In addition, Asian (particularly Vietnamese) DTOs and criminal groups and a number of other traffickers also cultivate significant and increasing quantities of high-potency cannabis indoors, particularly in upscale suburban neighborhoods where most residents commute to and from work and have little interaction with their neighbors. Most of their crack and PCP production occurs in inner-city neighborhoods; however, PCP increasingly is produced in the high desert areas of San Bernardino County.

Mexican DTOs and criminal groups, the principal transporters of illicit drugs, smuggle multihundred-kilogram quantities of marijuana, ice methamphetamine,³ cocaine, Mexican black tar and brown powder heroin, and MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine, also known as ecstasy)⁴ from Mexico to southern California--often through ports of entry (POEs) located in the San Diego area--using private and commercial vehicles and couriers on foot (increasingly illegal aliens). Once in southern California, these traffickers usually transport illicit drugs to the Los Angeles HIDTA region in private, rental, and commercial vehicles using the region's highly developed Interstates (Interstates 5, 10, 15, 40, and 215) and other roadways. During each phase of this process, they rely on their close associations with friends and family members residing on both sides of the California-Mexico border--a border located just 90 miles south of Orange and Riverside Counties--to ensure that the flow of illicit drugs from origin to destination goes uninterrupted. (See Figure 1 in Preface.) Their reliance on overland transport also solidifies the Los Angeles HIDTA region's role as one of the most significant gateways for illicit drugs available in the United States, since all illicit drugs that are smuggled across the California-Mexico border for distribution in and outside the area very likely pass through drug markets located in the Los Angeles HIDTA region. Most of the bulk cash and monetary instruments generated by drug traffickers and other criminals in the HIDTA region and a significant portion of the drug proceeds generated in many other U.S. locations are smuggled overland from the area into Mexico for many of the same reasons that traffickers use the HIDTA region as a base for drug smuggling activities.

Mexican DTOs' and criminal groups' tight-knit associations are, to a great extent, a principal reason for much of their drug trafficking success in the Los Angeles HIDTA region. Their success is magnified by the HIDTA region's demographic composition, which includes one of the largest Hispanic (primarily Mexican) populations in the country, a characteristic that helps Hispanic drug traffickers easily blend with legitimate residents and visitors.

The Los Angeles HIDTA region also has one of the largest and most diverse economies in the world. It is home to major industrial giants such as Boeing, General Motors, and Northrop Grumman, which have factories and regional headquarters located in the Los Angeles HIDTA region. It also has highly desired entertainment and sporting events--studios, television stations, and radio stations located in Hollywood and Beverly Hills; Disneyland; Knott's Berry Farm; and Universal Studios as well as popular sports teams (Angels, Clippers, Dodgers, Ducks, Kings, and Lakers)--that attract wealthy residents as well as tens of millions of tourists each year. Both of these populations (wealthy residents and tourists) as well as many others (particularly drug traffickers) include drug abusers with large sums of cash available to purchase illicit drugs, which helps drug traffickers maintain large-scale drug operations in the Los Angeles HIDTA region. That same level of wealth helps traffickers live flashy lifestyles and/or launder large quantities of cash without attracting the same level of attention that they may attract in many other U.S. drug market areas. Their money laundering capabilities are further amplified by the region's highly developed banking and financial centers--which are among the best in the world.

End Notes

1. U.S. Census estimates indicate that approximately 46 percent of all California residents resided in the Los Angeles High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) region as of July 1, 2007, the date from which most recent data are available.
2. San Bernardino County is larger in area than each of the nine smallest states in the country.
3. Ice methamphetamine refers to methamphetamine that has been crystallized from powder methamphetamine.
4. According to officials with the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Southwestern Regional Laboratory, some drug seizures that are believed to be MDMA (3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine, also known as ecstasy) tablets actually contain only methamphetamine or methamphetamine/MDMA combinations. Most of these tablets originate in Canada.

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