(IntegrityPress.org) – Cleaners found 235 lbs. of methamphetamine in an Air B’n’B in Alhambra, California, according to local police.
Officers were called to the Ethel Avenue home on Friday, May 24, after a cleaning team found suspicious boxes while carrying out their work. While police were investigating the scene, the two suspects returned to the house in a U-Haul van. Seeing officers at the property, they quickly turned the vehicle around and fled the scene.
Officers caught up with the suspects after a short while and by Sunday had announced their arrests. They were arrested on suspicion of trafficking narcotics, although police have not yet said where the drugs initially came from, or where they were destined to end up.
Police Sergeant Efren Tamayo said that details of the ongoing investigation were limited, but that police had found evidence linking the suspects’ vehicle with the drugs. According to Tamayo, the Air B’n’B was equipped with a Ring doorbell, which had recorded the suspects transporting the drugs using the same U-Haul vehicle they used to temporarily escape the police.
The identity of the suspects has so far been kept under wraps, although Alhambra Police Department was happy to share a photograph of the dozens of packages of methamphetamine recovered from the property. A statement from Air B’n’B condemned the use of its property in the alleged criminal activity and said that the “booking guest” had been removed from the website. It also said that it would work to support the host and the police department in the investigation.
Methamphetamine is just one of many illicit drugs that police forces across the U.S. are trying to prevent from ending up on the street in the midst of what some have deemed to be an overdose crisis. Synthetic drugs such as methamphetamine and fentanyl have stoked a huge increase in drugs related overdoses in recent years, with figures from 2023 showing over 100,000 deaths in the US attributed to drug overdoses. Alhambra residents have expressed dismay at the alleged narcotics trafficking taking place in their own neighborhood, which is home to many families and several daycare centers.
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