Joint Sting Has Resulted in 41 Arrests Throughout the County, Agencies Say : Crime: Twenty-one of those have already been convicted after a yearlong operation by the CHP, DEA and Customs that also netted drugs, stolen cars and guns.

The first undercover joint operation in San Diego by the California Highway Patrol, U.S. Customs Service and U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has netted drugs with a street value of $2.3 million, as well as 71 stolen cars, 32 firearms and cash totaling more than $1 million, officials said at a press conference Friday.

Forty-one people were arrested in the sting; of those, 21 have been convicted, and the rest are awaiting trial in state and federal courts, said Clarence Tuck, chief of the CHP’s Border Division, which includes San Diego, Imperial, Orange and south Riverside counties.

The sting, dubbed “Operation Hydra,” began in 1987. Agents worked from a Chula Vista warehouse that opened in May, 1988, and closed a year later. Arrest warrants were issued about that time throughout San Diego county, Tuck said.

Undercover agents posed as buyers of the stolen cars, drugs and guns, he said, while audio and video equipment, hidden behind a false wall, recorded the exchange of cash for contraband.

The sting began when undercover CHP officers infiltrated stolen-car rings in the San Ysidro area, said John Marinez, a spokesman for the agency. During that operation, the officers were asked by some of the sellers if they also wanted to buy drugs and guns. The CHP called in the other two agencies to work with them.

Tuck said the enterprise grew rapidly because the agents represented themselves as “buyers of anything.” They even had business cards made for a bogus import and export company, imprinted with an Aztec Indian, a pyramid and the words All types of goods bought & sold .

One agent said those involved were often fearful for their lives. Their targets all carried weapons and spoke about killing people, he said. Two of those arrested are also murder suspects, and another was on parole on an arson conviction, he said.

“Probably the thing that made it easy for us was that they felt that we were as big or bigger criminals than they were,” he said.

On display at the press conference were handguns, shotguns, rifles, two semiautomatic rifles, swords, knives, machetes and crossbows.

Agents also raided two methamphetamine labs during the sting. The drug seizures netted 2.7 pounds of methamphetamine, 2.3 pounds of heroin, 2.2 pounds of cocaine and 402 pounds of marijuana.

Tuck said that, although the problem of drugs, weapons and stolen cars is not unique to San Diego, the stolen vehicles often find their way across the border, where they are used to transport undocumented immigrants north.

The officials acknowledged that they may have made only a small dent in criminal operations in San Diego, but one agent said that the announcement of the sting would put criminals on notice: “The next person they sell a car to may be a cop.”