Santa Barbara – Santa Barbara Police Department Public Information Officer Sgt. Riley Harwood has released details of the arrests of four local area gang members suspected to have ties with the Mexican Mafia, and who have allegedly been actively trafficking in the sale of methamphetamine and perpetrating a range of other felonies.
Ruben Jose Regalado
According to Harwood, Santa Barbara Police Department detectives have been aggressively investigating “the influence of the Mexican Mafia prison gang and ‘Surenos’ (Southern California Hispanic street gang members) in the commission of crimes throughout Santa Barbara County” ever since local area gang member Raymond Macias was arrested in a 2013 case involving the kidnapping and torture of a rival gang member. The year-and-a-half long investigation pointed to the ongoing extortion of various county residents on behalf of the Mexican Mafia, with victims involved “in both criminal and legitimate activities,” an illegal operation Harwood reported as referred to by criminal gang members as “collecting taxes.”
Benjamin Ybarra
With Benjamin Ybarra, 36, Jesse Martin Enriquez, 35, Franco Eric Aguiniga, 24, and Ruben Jose Regalado, 34, all identified during the course of the investigation as conspiring to commit extortion and traffic in methamphetamine, detectives worked closely with the Lompoc Police Department, the Santa Maria Police Department, and the California Department of Corrections to locate and apprehend the four.
Franco Eric Aguiniga
Harwood just now revealed that all four suspects were contacted on September 25th, taken into custody without incident, and booked into Santa Barbara County Jail with individual bail amounts of $500,000.
Photos: Courtesy Santa Barbara County Jail Booking
Read more:
ABC7: Mexican mafia tax collectors arrested
KSBY: Four gang members arrested
