24 Drug labs dismantled in Baja California

Drugs are no longer just trafficked here, but also made

The home marked with the number 7562 on Francisco Zarco street in Tijuana, was protected by a metal gate that at first sight, it served as protection for the three children living in the house. They say that a few years ago the Guillen Family arrived here in eastern Tijuana to set up a used tire business.

Neighbors in the area remember the way the kids' mother, Martha, used to come and go, everything seemed normal: she would take the kids to school, bring them back, sometimes come home with grocery bags, other times people would see her watering her plants.

The shock came when on July 29th 2013, the "Family's" huge house was surrounded by numerous police vehicles; from the windows the neighbors saw how one by one the Guillens were arrested and taken out of the house.

For a few months now the house was not what it seemed. At first glance they were just a normal family, in their home basement they were a group of "cooks" that produced up to 186 kilos of methamphetamine, and obtained a monthly income of 93 million pesos.

It was the state police that dismantled the "narc lab", which is what they call underground places where drug is manufactured in Mexico.

The first to be arrested was 35 year old Luis Antonio Guillen.

He was about to get out of his 2005 Focus, with two clear plastic retainers with a white granulated substance. It was the finished "Crystal meth", it was barely a kilogram; he would confess later on he had 5 more in the trunk of his car.

37 year old German Morales Galindo, 47 year old Ramon Herrera Yañez, 39 year old Jose Luis Chaidez Rubio and 26 year old Martha Manuela were also arrested. It was until that day that all of the neighbors in the Francisco Zarco neighborhood realized that this was not a conventional family.

That afternoon they found a cache of ingredients and materials in the residence, methamphetamines, battery acid, drain cleaners, anti-freeze and dozens of containers in which to store the drug.

Narc Labs are booming

In Baja California the proliferation of underground drug laboratories has been recurrent since 2010, though popular belief was that the border was simply a crossing point to smuggle drugs into the United States, it is no longer true, since drugs are now actively being produced here.

Through an information request to the government, it was revealed that since 2010, 24 different laboratories have been dismantled, most of them produced methamphetamines, "Crystal Meth" and high potency synthetic drugs.

During 2010, 8 drug labs were discovered, half of them in Ensenada, where they found up to 2,887 unknown substances, and 265 liters of acetone. In 2011 they dismantled another 6, during this year the largest drug production was in Tijuana with 4 labs.

In 2012, 7 more labs were discovered, 5 of them also in the city of Tijuana.

And finally 2013, authorities have "busted open" 2 different drug labs including the one on Francisco Zarco street.

According to the information provided by the Department of Public Safety in Baja California and the Mexican Army, they have arrested 62 "cooks" since 2010.

The neighborhoods where these "cooks" have been setting up their drug labs are part of downtown Tijuana, the neighborhoods of Independencia, Herrera, Buenos Aires, El Florido, Francisco Villa and Playas de Tijuana.

Laura.Sanchez@sandiegored.com

Daniel.Aguilar@sandiegored.com

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