5 Arrested in Shopping Center Drug Lab Raid
Los Angeles County sheriff’s narcotics investigators arrested five men Wednesday and confiscated equipment and chemicals capable of producing about $2 million worth of illegal methamphetamine, authorities said.
Investigators also seized three cars, three car phones and $2,200 in cash during searches at a Lancaster laboratory and a Chatsworth motel and a public storage facility, Sheriff’s Sgt. Terry Judge said. Deputies discovered the lab at a Lancaster shopping center in the 2000 block of West Avenue J, after they noticed an open door while responding to a report of a suspicious person in the mall at 1 a.m., Judge said.
Arrested on suspicion of manufacturing a controlled substance were Nicholas Tombros, 23, of Simi Valley; Brandon Ricketts, 22, of Chatsworth; Walker Jonson, 22, of Sepulveda; Christopher Walsh, 24, of Northridge; and Robert Lee, 22, of Chatsworth, Judge said. All were being held at the Sheriff’s Antelope Valley Jail, he said.
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