SEASIDE, Calif.- Local police seize hundreds of pounds of an exotic drug that's popping up on the Central Coast. It's called khat and it comes from a shrub native to Southern Arabia and East Africa.
Investigators said it's becoming a big problem across the country. Seaside investigators said this is the first big khat bust on the Central Coast, since one in Prunedale in the late nineties and it's hard to catch. They said if it were on the back of truck it would look like a pile of leaves and it's being shipped straight to the Central Coast from England.
It's a stimulant that can be smoked and is as serious as meth.
"What makes khat illegal is that it has two chemicals, one chemical is cathinone and it has a potential for being highly addictive," Seaside Police Department Acting Commander Bruno Dias.
Dias said what started as 72 pound seizure from a car belonging to 40-year-old Jaime Gomez of Salinas on Wednesday, has turned into a much bigger investigation, after another search on Thursday.
"We're finding out that this is something that's been on going for a while. So we're looking at this as something that is in the hundreds of pounds," Dias said.
Dias said Gomez was booked in jail but has since bailed out. Dias said his team has been working with the Department of Homeland Security and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement to track Gomez's shipments coming through a UPS store in Seaside and one in Del Rey Oaks.
Investigators said it was shipped and disguised as tea from England and you'd never know the difference because it doesn't have a distinct smell. Dias said its big business in the US because it sells for about $180 to $300 bucks a pound.
"For example in San Diego, there's a large Somalian community there, and I know that this drug, there's been some significant seizures in San Diego," Dias said.
But in places where it's grown, it only sells for about a buck a pound.
"A lot of its grown in Ethiopia and then it goes to England and from England to Canada and then to the US," Dias said.
Seaside police said khat doesn't have a big footprint on the Central Coast, but it's something they're keeping a close eye on.
