CODE Team: 3 arrested as they returned to C.O. with meth, heroin

OSP assists in traffic stop, search on Highway 97 near Klamath Falls

KLAMATH FALLS, Ore. (KTVZ) -- Central Oregon drug agents and Oregon State Police stopped a car and arrested two Bend men and a Southern California woman on Highway 97 near Klamath Falls, finding hidden methamphetamine and heroin, police said Wednesday.

Detectives assigned to the Central Oregon Drug Enforcement (CODE) Team, assisted by troopers, conducted the traffic stop around 9:30 a.m. Monday near the Midland Rest Area, south of Klamath Falls.

They arrested Todd Alan Whitehorn, 30, and Brandon Joel Hastings, 40, both of Bend, and Dolores Jasmine Atanacio, 28, of Anaheim, California, Lt. Ken Mannix said.

“The arrests were the result of a CODE Team investigation into trafficking of commercial quantities of methamphetamine and heroin into the Central Oregon region over an extended period of time,” Mannix said in a news release.

Detectives conducted the stop of the white Kia Optima after learning Whitehorn and Hastings were returning to Central Oregon, Mannix added.

A search of the car turned up about four pounds of meth and a “commercial quantity” of heroin concealed inside, along with, two firearms, cash, scales, packaging materials and other evidence of meth sales, manufacturing and distribution, the lieutenant said.

The three suspects were booked into the Klamath County Jail on charges of heroin and methamphetamine possession, manufacturing and distribution and felon in possession of a firearm. They remained held Wednesday on $250,000 bail.

The Central Oregon Drug Enforcement (CODE) team is a multi-jurisdictional narcotics task force supported by the Oregon-Idaho High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) program and the following Central Oregon law enforcement agencies:  Bend Police Department, Deschutes County Sheriff’s Office, Redmond Police Department,  Prineville Police Department, Crook County Sheriff’s Office, Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, Madras Police Department, Oregon State Police, Sunriver Police Department, Black Butte Police Department, United States Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Warm Springs Tribal Police Department, Deschutes, Crook, and Jefferson County District Attorney’s, and the Oregon National Guard. 

The Oregon-Idaho HIDTA program is an Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) sponsored counterdrug grant program that coordinates and provides funding resources to multi-agency drug enforcement task forces to disrupt or dismantle local, multi-state and international drug trafficking organizations.