BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) – No fewer than nine law enforcement agencies – including the FBI and DEA – participated Thursday morning in what Bakersfield Police are describing as a criminal gang enforcement operation.
Agents acting on 21 separate search warrants made multiple arrests, according to BPD.
17 News learned of several possible locations where local, state and federal agents were said to have converged to make those arrests but we were able to confirm only three as having been associated with this operation.
Agents including those from Homeland Security, the U.S. Marshals Office, the state DOJ’s Los Angeles Impact Team, and the CDC, as well as the FBI, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, the Kern County Sheriff’s Department, Kern County Probation, and BPD, swarmed the Cigarette smoke shop in the 700 block of Irene Street in East Bakersfield, where a dozen suspects were detained and what appeared to be illegal gambling machines were confiscated.
Agents also descended on the Route 66 Smoke Shop in the 400 block of Lincoln Street in Oildale.
Arrests were made at a home in the 11600 block of Alton Manor Drive, in the Brighton Place community of west Bakersfield.
A resident in that upscale gated neighborhood told 17 News that agents arrived at 6 a.m. and led multiple people away in handcuffs.
The Bakersfield Police Department will host a press conference at 2 p.m. Friday to lay out more details of the operation.
