We all know about the ridiculous, chronic waits for service at California DMVs. But the one in Stanton provided an unofficial perk for those line-waiters seeking pain relief. In the parking lot, folks apparently have been able to buy large quantities of black market narcotics.
An undercover Costa Mesa Police Department cop stopped in an unmarked vehicle at that DMV in late May, posed as a drug buyer and—voila!—found a man, Kevin Mario Niebres, willing to sell heroin, methamphetamine, prescription pills and—this is Orange County, after all—assault rifles, according to an FBI task force report.
Government agents say the undercover cop requested half a pound of methamphetamine and Niebres, unaware he was entering a trap, allegedly agreed to meet days later at South Coast Plaza for the $950 transaction.
With hidden surveillance units surrounding the area, Niebres along with Michael Aaron Shores and a third man arrived at the ritzy mall in a silver Hyundai Sonata and handed the undercover cop a black sweater, which contained a ziplock bag with methamphetamine, the FBI report states.
The men were quickly arrested.
This month inside the Ronald Reagan Federal Courthouse in Santa Ana, the FBI filed a complaint against Niebres and Shores for possession with intent to distribute meth.
A trial date has not yet been set.
CNN-featured investigative reporter R. Scott Moxley has won Journalist of the Year honors at the Los Angeles Press Club; been named Distinguished Journalist of the Year by the LA Society of Professional Journalists; obtained one of the last exclusive prison interviews with Charles Manson disciple Susan Atkins; won inclusion in Jeffrey Toobin’s The Best American Crime Reporting for his coverage of a white supremacist’s senseless murder of a beloved Vietnamese refugee; launched multi-year probes that resulted in the FBI arrests and convictions of the top three ranking members of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; and gained praise from New York Times Magazine writers for his “herculean job” exposing entrenched Southern California law enforcement corruption.
How is this related to the dmv? Because it happened in the parking lot that is shared by multiple businesses?
Because a undercover drug bust just doesn’t sound as exciting as dmv selling meth.
Garbage reporting.