Two other ex-convicts -- one from Riverside County, the other from Phoenix -- were arrested in August on suspicion of operating a lab at a ranch where Mexican authorities discovered 220 pounds of methamphetamine.
The migration south of fugitives and ex-convicts worries authorities who say it coincides with the release from U.S. prisons of many drug traffickers who have finished serving sentences dating from the early era of the methamphetamine trade.
Scarce resources
With narcotics-related violence flaring across the country, experts say Mexico is ill-prepared to open another front against methamphetamine production. The DEA has donated equipment and begun to teach their Mexican counterparts how to find drug labs, but resources for a wide-ranging enforcement effort are scarce.
Authorities in Guadalajara, for instance, delayed dismantling the lab in January because the nearest lab truck, filled with protective suits and equipment to safely dispose of chemicals, was five hours away, in Mexico City.
"The problem is too new," said Marcos Pablo Moloeznick Gruer, a political science professor at the University of Guadalajara. He said Mexican law enforcement was not "aware or concerned enough" about the rise in methamphetamine production.
richard.marosi@latimes.com
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Border surge
As the number of methamphetamine "superlabs" in the U.S. has dropped, the amount of the drug seized en route from Mexico has increased.
Superlab seizures
2003
- California: 125
- U.S.: 130
2004
- California: 43
- U.S.: 55
2005
- California: 29
- U.S.: 35
2006*
- California: 12
U.S.: 19
*Through Oct. 15
Methamphetamine seizures at U.S.-Mexican border (in pounds)
2003: 4,030
2004: 5,335
2005: 6,063
Source: Drug Enforcement Administration
California
