When did Amarillo become the hub for big time drug dealers?

I know I'm relatively new here, but I swear I've never heard of so many big time busts in one place in such a short period of time.

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Our latest big time drug bust comes courtesy of two Amarillo residents and one from Arizona.

Randall County Sheriff's Office
Randall County Sheriff's Office
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Michael Raymond Tamayo, Van Tu-Lap Cao, and Saul Adan Valdez-Campos were all arrested on October 30th in conjunction with conspiring to traffic meth and Fentanyl.

Police have been investigating the Tamayo drug trafficking operation, and they got a break in late October. Police had been surveilling a house on Shylana Avenue when a truck left the residence.

They followed the truck just outside city limits then reached out to the Potter County Sheriff's Office. They pulled over the vehicle on direction of APD, and a K9 unit alerted the officers of something with the truck. That allowed them to conduct a search of the vehicle.

Randall County Sheriff's Office
Randall County Sheriff's Office
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Their search yielded a kilogram of Fentanyl and 17 different bundles of cash wrapped up inside a spare tire underneath the vehicle.

The driver and passenger of the vehicle admitted coming from the house, and also identified Tamayo as the source of the drugs.

Police were then able to obtain a warrant for the house they came from, where Tamayo and Cao were the listed residents. Inside the home, they found multiple firearms, 55 pounds of meth along with things such as a money counter and scale.

Randall County Sheriff's Office
Randall County Sheriff's Office
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Once arrested, Tamayo admitted to selling a bunch of meth in Amarillo since 2020. He also told investigators that he used a courier to get the drugs to him from Arizona.

Add this one to the list of big time drug busts in Amarillo this year.

Amarillo's Biggest Drug Busts in 2021.....So Far

Amarillo can be a rowdy place with some lawless characters. Here's some of the biggest drug busts made in Amarillo for 2021 so far....and a little bit of the backstory.

Let's just say that these folks are in t-r-o-u-b-l-e.

Note from editor: An indictment is not a conviction. All individuals shown below who have not appeared in court for a judgement are to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.

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