The San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office says it's making strides in combating narcotics, firearms and gang-related crimes throughout the county.
The Special Operations Unit, which is a combination of the sheriff’s gang task force and narcotics unit, has reportedly seized more narcotics since January than it did in all of 2023.
Among those drugs, the sheriff's office says 3.23 pounds of fentanyl has been seized.
While Detective Division Commander Chad Nicholson is proud of what they’ve done so far, he knows there’s still a lot of work to do.
“It is definitely comforting because it means that hopefully there is less out there. With that being said, there's still a lot of fentanyl out there,” he said.
So far this year, sheriff’s officials say the Special Operations Unit has conducted more than 50 investigations and authored over 100 search warrants which resulted in 30 arrests or criminal filings with the District Attorney’s Office.
“We want to find out who their supplier is and who that person's supplier is so we can take down the entire narcotics organization,” Nicholson said.
He explained that many of the firearms and narcotics seizures that the Special Operations Unit deals with are connected to gang-related crime in the county.
According to sheriff’s office data, every city and most major unincorporated areas were represented in the total findings.
