Federal and local law enforcement agencies descended on the MacArthur Park area Wednesday and carried out a sweeping operation targeting what prosecutors described as an “open-air drug market.”
Video from the scene showed numerous law enforcement vehicles at the scene and what was described as hundreds of officers taking part in the operation, which closed multiple streets adjacent to the park near Wilshire Boulevard and Sixth Street.
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said the operation was designed to “liberate the park from an open-air drug market that’s proliferated here for too long.”
Essayli said a total of 25 arrest warrants were being served during the operation, along with nine search warrants — six of which targeted businesses across from the park. He said operators of the large-scale drug operations were “storing and stashing” drugs at storefronts near the park.
He said authorities earlier on Wednesday arrested a man and woman in South Los Angeles who are believed to be the main suppliers of fentanyl and methamphetamine in MacArthur Park.
Los Angeles Police Department and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents were both taking part in the operation.