Federal agents and local authorities arrested more than a dozen people as part of a sweep this week targeting what authorities called an “open-air drug market” in MacArthur Park.
As part of what First Assistant U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli dubbed “Operation Free MacArthur Park,” authorities arrested 18 people, including two people believed to be the main sources of fentanyl and methamphetamine in the park, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles.
Those arrested are among 25 defendants facing federal drug distribution charges, authorities said. Seven others are fugitives.
Essayli posted on X that the park’s alleged top drug trafficker is a Calabasas resident who is now in custody and facing up to life in prison. Other defendants also face decades in prison, he said.
Essayli said the operation and other recent takedowns tied to the park show that the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security “are determined to fight drug traffickers poisoning our citizens.”
“MacArthur Park should be for families, it should be for residents of Los Angeles — not for drug dealers and gangsters,” Essayli said at a news conference Wednesday afternoon. “We’re here to liberate it. … This is not a one-and-done operation. We are here and we are not leaving.”
According to an affidavit filed with the federal charges, Mallaly Moreno-Lopez, 31, and her boyfriend, Jackson Tarfur, 28, both of South L.A., allegedly “serve as the, if not one of the main sources of supply of fentanyl powder and methamphetamine distributed in the Alvarado Corridor and MacArthur Park, generally on behalf of the 18th Street Gang.”
Moreno-Lopez and Tarfur allegedly hand-delivered narcotics to the Alvarado corridor to stash in storefronts and later distribute to street-level drug dealers.
Yolanda Iriarte-Avila, 40, of Calabasas is accused of being a source of supply of methamphetamine for Moreno-Lopez, via Iriarte-Avila’s boyfriend, Jesus Morales-Landel, 33, of the Exposition Park area of South Los Angeles, who is allegedly a street-level drug dealer in the area, according to the charging documents.
Dozens of armed federal agents and LAPD officers were seeing raiding several storefronts near the Alvarado corridor on Wednesday afternoon. As agents moved in and out of the location, LAPD officers cordoned off the northeast corner of the park with yellow crime scene tape.
“You on the rooftop, go back to your residence,” a voice on the loudspeaker said.
Anthony Chrysanthis, the head of the DEA’s office in Los Angeles, said six warrants were served at businesses selling narcotics on the Alvarado corridor.
Minutes before the raid, LAPD squads slowly circled the park. Then around 2:08 p.m., a caravan of additional police and federal vehicles pulled up to 6th and Alvarado and scores of officers spilled out.
LAPD officers and DEA agents converged along Alvarado Avenue near MacArthur Park targeting what authorities described as an open-air drug market.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
They were joined soon after a large, command-post-style vehicle, which was followed by several other armored tactical vehicles.
Officers began fanning through the park and pushing back people they encountered.
The operation drew the attention of several dozen onlookers, who were standing in line as part of a food giveaway by a local nonprofit called the Dream Center Foundation.
“You’re gonna round us all up in one spot that’s where you want us,” one man said as he brushed past the line.
At one point, a black-and-white LAPD helicopter flew overhead. Authorities made several announcements over a loudspeaker that it was a Drug Enforcement Administration operation.
“We have a federal narcotics warrant in the area,” one announcement said, instructing people to comply with law enforcement commands and walk down the street with their hands on their heads.
Acting U.S. Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche posted on X saying DEA agents and LAPD officers “have taken back MacArthur Park.”
“To the drug dealers poisoning the streets of Los Angeles: your safe haven is gone.”
It’s the latest in a series of crackdowns on MacArthur Park. In March, federal authorities arrested a dozen members and associates of the 18th Street gang on indictments alleging murder, extortion and drug trafficking.
Authorities at the time said the gang controlled the park “as an open-air drug marketplace, using tents to blend in with the homeless population and avoid detection by law enforcement.”
Chrysanthis, with the DEA, referred to the operation this week as “an effort to return safety, wellness and hope to the community that lives here.”