Neighboring Counties Recruited in Drug War : Crime: The DEA is urging police in Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo areas to form federal-local task forces. Major traffickers have been found to be moving into those areas.

VENTURA —  Faced with growing evidence that drug kingpins and increased drug trafficking have moved into Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties, DEA officials are urging local police to form joint federal-local task forces to deal with the problem.

The move to stifle the burgeoning drug trade in those areas comes after local and federal law enforcement intelligence turned up information that major traffickers are now living in the Simi and Conejo valleys, and have made an effort to blend into quiet, upper-middle-class residential communities, law enforcement sources said.

Along with their presence has come increased shipments of narcotics to these three counties from Los Angeles, informed sources said. Last year, a Drug Enforcement Administration task force closed down a drug ring that had stored 125 kilos of cocaine in an Oxnard house, a local DEA official said.

Both drug seizures and arrests have increased substantially in recent years.

This situation prompted the recommendation from DEA officials to form the joint task forces.

Though smaller local-federal task forces were started--and ended--in the early 1980s, the current action is viewed as the first large-scale effort to attack the problem.

Last week, DEA officials met with Simi Valley police officials to discuss the possibility of new task force operations in eastern Ventura County.

And later this month, a representative from the federal drug agency plans to sit down with Oxnard and Ventura police to propose a joint anti-drug strike force for the two cities, said William Modesitt, who supervises DEA activity in the three counties from the agency’s Goleta office.

Other federal-local task force operations are on the DEA’s drawing board for Santa Barbara County--initially focusing in the Santa Maria area--and San Luis Obispo County if police agencies give a green light, DEA sources said.

“If we don’t do something now, and try to wait three to five years, we’ll get slapped in the face,” said Modesitt.

Now is the time to act on the task force concept, he said, because Ventura County, for example, “is starting to feel the effects of being a northern neighbor to Los Angeles.”

Also, he said, officials see Oxnard “as a major drug distribution area for the Central Coast.”

Under the DEA task force concept, police and sheriff’s agencies assign personnel to work with federal narcotics investigators for a year or more, with the DEA picking up much of the tab.

Some police already expressed support for the concept, while others prefer to work alone.

Sgt. Bill Bogner, who heads the Ventura Police Department’s drug unit, agreed that the drug problem “crosses all borders.”

In eastern Ventura County, law enforcement sources said the drug trafficking problem has been compounded by the traffickers themselves taking up residence in the area.

“A couple of hundred” dealers are believed to be living in the Simi and Conejo valleys in an effort to distance themselves from stepped-up law enforcement efforts in Los Angeles, sources said.

And about a dozen drug kingpins--individuals who deal in large quantities of narcotics--have moved into attractive subdivisions near Simi Valley and Thousand Oaks, a DEA source said.

“There’s enough work up there to keep people busy,” said DEA group supervisor Harry Hensel, who heads a new DEA task force based in San Fernando.