Release Date/Time: 1/25/2022 12:15 PM
Incident: Results of Operation Blue Angel
Date:\ Tuesday, 1/25/2022
Time:\ 9:00 AM
Location: 312 E. Alisal St.

Results of Recent Violence Suppression Task Force (VSTF) Operation Blue Angel

Over the last several weeks, the Salinas Police Department’s Violence Suppression Task Force (VSTF) in cooperation with our law enforcement partners from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Correctional Training Facility Soledad, Salinas Valley State Prison, State Parole, Northern California HIDTA and Monterey County DA’s Office have been investigating the sales of a large amount of M30 Fentanyl pills and other narcotic sales in the City of Salinas.  The sales of these dangerous drugs are directly associated with the Norteño criminal street gang. VSTF was able to identify multiple locations associated with the sales of these narcotics and search warrants were authored for those locations.

During the service of these multiple location search warrants which were carried out last week, VSTF officers and K9 Oakley located numerous illegal items. Some of these items include a .38 caliber Taurus revolver, a pistol grip Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun, a .22 Ruger Rifle, a Glock 17 9MM handgun, a 1911 .45 caliber handgun, numerous items of indicia associated to the sale of narcotics, 138 grams of methamphetamine, approximately 65,500 M30 fentanyl pills, and two stolen vehicles.  Each fentanyl pill sells between $5 and $20. This seizure of fentanyl pills has a street value well over $350,000.  

In recent years, there has been a nationwide surge in counterfeit pills that are primarily manufactured by criminal drug cartels in clandestine labs and are being sold in our city.  Most of these counterfeit pills are manufactured using fentanyl as the active ingredient. These counterfeit pills are then illegally sold by street drug dealers as Oxycodone, Xanax, Percocet, or other similar drugs.  Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid that is 80-100 times stronger than morphine. The fentanyl pills we are seeing in our city are blue in color and are marked with an “M30”.  Some of the terminology used for the fentanyl pills is Fent, blues, M30’s, China white, fenty, blue diamond, percs, percocets, dolphins. 

Release Authorized by: Miguel Cabrera
Telephone: 831 758-7289