Arlington Warrant Leads to Massive Pot Bust Stretching to California

An investigation that begin last summer with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the Arlington County Police Department has ended in the bust of a huge marijuana network connected to California.

Montgomery County Police arrested Dat T. Ngo of Alexandria on Feb. 23 on an outstanding Arlington County warrant -- an arrest which touched off a series of search warrants due to an investigation Arlington police and the USPS had begun last August over suspicions that a large amount of marijuana was being imported into the city, according to an Arlington County Police Department statement.

Following Ngo’s arrest, police believe they have found a “large-scale distribution network” that involved sending parcels from California to businesses in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C.

The bust was so large that it also involved assistance from the Northern Virginia Financial Initiative and the Washington/Baltimore High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) initiative.

Meanwhile, authorities in California -- including the Los Angeles Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation -- issued search warrants, which resulted in the arrest of Kien V. Luong of Los Angeles, who was also wanted on an Arlington County warrant. Luong will be held in Los Angeles pending extradition to Virginia.