SALT LAKE CITY -- Two Ogden men were among 21 people arrested this week following a massive raid by the Utah Attorney General's SECURE Strike Force.
Juan Espinoza, 36, and Sergio Garcia, 37, were booked in Weber County Jail on Tuesday.
More arrests are expected to follow as agents finish their investigation, said Ken Wallentine, chief of law enforcement for the Utah Attorney General.
Agents served 27 search warrants at locations in Weber, Davis, Salt Lake, Utah, Tooele and Summit counties, Wallentine said.
Illegal drugs recovered included pain pills, tablets, capsules and injectable antibiotics and steroids.
Many of the drugs were being sold without a prescription, and some had been previously banned by the federal Food and Drug Administration.
Wallentine said investigators received a tip about two months ago about drugs being smuggled into the state and being sold at convenience-type stores that carry ethnic foods and products.
Undercover agents then went to a number of stores along the Wasatch Front trying to buy drugs.
"We want to emphasize these were not connected to any chain (convenience stores)," Wallentine said.
Wallentine would not say which stores Espinoza and Garcia worked.
Wallentine said even though all of the 21 people arrested have Hispanic names, officers were not singling out a specific ethnic group.
"There are many, many legitimate businesses operated by Latinos and many fine people out there who told our undercover agents they were not in the business of selling drugs," Wallentine said.
Wallentine said the arrests began Monday when officers arrested the supplier at his storage facility.
"We just got lucky," Wallentine said. "He just got back from an import run, and the storage facility was stocked."
Agents then moved quickly to get the warrants and make the arrests before word got out, he said.
Officers from Clearfield and Ogden police departments and Weber-Morgan Narcotics Strike Force helped with the arrests.
They began at 5 a.m. Tuesday, and the last man left the office at 2:30 a.m. Wednesday.
Wallentine said more than 2,000 boxes of illegal drugs were seized. Also seized was about $250,000 in small bills in a shoebox.
"To me, that says big business," Wallentine said.
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