“In the early 1990s, the cooks were monkey see, monkey do. Like using a cookbook,” said Larry Cho, who, as a federal prosecutor, took down a supply and stash house operation run by the Amezcuas out of the Orange County town of Placentia. “They weren’t using anyone trained in chemistry. All these meth labs were exploding because they didn’t know what they were doing.” But they learned, and with the Amezcua brothers’ ephedrine, the new Mexican meth cooks scaled up their operations. Hells Angels cooks took three days to make five pounds of meth. Mexican crews soon learned to arrive at cook sites
...more
