Who said crime doesn’t pay?
It apparently can — if you’re San Joaquin County.
Both the Sheriff’s Office and district attorney are celebrating some ill-gotten gains — in this instance, cold, hard cash — that were seized during a narcotics sales investigation and are now headed back into the public coffers.
The offices of District Attorney Ron Freitas and Sheriff Patrick Withrow separately announced that a jury recently decided $379,744 confiscated during various drug raids by the Metro Narcotics Task Force must be forfeited.
“We’ve hit these criminals where it hurts — their wallets,” Freitas said in a statement.
The jury ruled that the money was proceeds from narcotics trafficking. In offering proof, the sheriff noted the task force not only seized lots of cash, but also 130 fentanyl pills and eight guns as part of raids conducted in 2020. The following year, the haul included a kilogram of heroin, a pound of methamphetamine and some marijuana, authorities said.
Five people were taken into custody and later convicted, sheriff’s officials said. Freitas added that the nine-day trial and convictions effectively ended a drug-trafficking network.
Of course, the payoff to the county took awhile.
“It highlights the complexity and duration of these investigations,” Withrow’s office said.