The operation, known as “Operation Volcano,” was carried out between March 2025 and March 2026 through a coordinated effort involving multiple law enforcement agencies throughout the county. Investigators focused on identifying high-risk offenders and disrupting online exploitation networks operating within the region.

    Authorities said more than 500 unique Internet Protocol addresses were linked to the suspected distribution of child pornography during the investigation. Each case was reviewed using what officials described as a structured screening process designed to prioritize suspects considered most dangerous. That included individuals with prior sex crime convictions, people already under criminal justice supervision, and those employed in positions involving children or public trust.

    During the operation, investigators served 46 search warrants at homes throughout Riverside County. Those searches ultimately resulted in 42 arrests involving residents from communities including Banning, Beaumont, Bermuda Dunes, Corona, Eastvale, Hemet, Lake Elsinore, Menifee, Moreno Valley, Murrieta, Palm Springs, Perris, Riverside, San Jacinto, Temecula and Winchester.

    According to the District Attorney’s Office, 14 of the individuals arrested were considered high-risk offenders. Officials said those suspects included a person wanted on a $2 million warrant related to child sexual assault, along with professionals working in a variety of fields, including healthcare, government, technology and education-related services.

    Among those identified by prosecutors were a child psychologist, a naturopathic doctor, a retired law enforcement employee, a California prison information technology worker, a local government planning director, a Southern California hospital chief technology officer, a notary public, a United States Postal Service employee, two corporate vice presidents and three registered sex offenders.

    Authorities released the names and cities of residence for many of the suspects arrested during the operation. Arrest dates and custody status for several individuals were not immediately available.

    The individuals identified by the District Attorney’s Office include: Feliciano Chavarria, 62, Lake Elsinore; Enrique Castaneda, 51, Riverside; Eric Thai, 43, Menifee; James Munson, 32, San Jacinto; William Zahn, 48, Riverside; John Carrico, 52, Murrieta; Jason Lee, 51, Banning; Brian Erwin, 46, Beaumont; Daniel Malcolm, 46, Bermuda Dunes; Randolph Velasco, 44, Lake Elsinore; Marcus Guevara, 21, Winchester; Christopher Gibbons, 39, Moreno Valley; Allen Cox, 81, Menifee; David Poggi, 59, Menifee; Zixiang Cheng, 32, Murrieta; Ray Kubal, 75, Menifee; Ethan Conely, 29, Menifee; Jessie Bonales, 40, Temecula; Nicholas Williams, 39, Norco; Daniel Cunningham, 43, Corona; Adam Robinson, 38, Riverside; Kenneth Camron, 68, Menifee; Neftali Jimenez, 21, Riverside; Robert Schaar, 53, Temecula; Victor Sepulveda, 60, Moreno Valley; Stuart Triplett, 61, Temecula; Jame Davis, 60, Lake Elsinore; Xinyi Su, 22, Mira Loma; Mark Tyler, 66, Perris; Rickson Jao, 62, Eastvale; Stacey Parker, 62, Moreno Valley; Chas Rico, 30, Murrieta; Jonathan Jordan, 27, Moreno Valley; Jeremiah Davis, 21, Hemet; Dustin Jenks, 56, Palm Springs; Richard Mckeehan Jr., 48, Moreno Valley; Anthony Ramirez, 39, Nuevo; and Daniel Chico, 21, Riverside.

    All suspects are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law.

    The Riverside County announcement comes just days after San Bernardino County authorities announced the conclusion of a similar operation. The San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department said “Operation Firewall,” a two-week internet crimes enforcement effort, resulted in 101 arrests.

    San Bernardino County officials said charges in that operation included possession and distribution of child sexual abuse material, arranging meetings with minors for sexual purposes, sending explicit images to minors, lewd acts involving minors and violations tied to sex offender registration requirements.

    Investigators in San Bernardino County also reported that 16 children were removed from situations involving alleged abuse or exploitation during the operation.

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Deputies with the Kern County Sheriff’s Office, Mojave Station, arrested three Inland Empire men in connection with the case. The suspects were identified as Jose Lopez, 37, of San Bernardino; Ruben Lopez Flores, 25, of Los Angeles; and Freddy Hernandez Polinar, 35, of Chino. All three face multiple felony charges, including cargo theft, possession of a stolen vehicle and conspiracy.

The investigation began April 8 when deputies were called to the 400 block of Silver Queen Road after reports of suspicious vehicles. When law enforcement arrived, two box trucks attempted to flee the area. Deputies conducted traffic stops and detained the drivers without further incident.

Inside the trucks, authorities discovered a large quantity of Lego merchandise. Further investigation revealed the cargo had been taken while in transit from Fort Worth, Texas, and was headed to Moreno Valley in Riverside County.

According to Kern County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Lori Meza, the shipment was destined for Moreno Valley but was not en route to an official Lego retail store. Additional details about the intended destination and whether any items are still missing remain under investigation.

The recovery comes amid a growing number of theft cases involving high-demand retail goods in the Inland Empire.

In a separate incident last month, Hemet police uncovered a retail theft operation involving stolen merchandise, including Lego sets, being resold at a local swap meet. Authorities said thousands of dollars worth of items — ranging from Star Wars-themed Lego sets to toys and power tools — were seized during that investigation.

Hemet Police Chief Michael Arellano said at the time that the crackdown reflects a broader effort to combat organized retail theft and protect local businesses from financial losses.

It remains unclear whether the two cases are connected.

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The deputies from the Jurupa Valley Sheriff’s Station and Eastvale Special Enforcement Team worked from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Friday in the 12500 block of Limonite Avenue, according to Riverside County sheriff’s Sgt. Vanessa Rodriguez.

Deputies observed suspects stealing merchandise and arrested them without incident, Rodriguez said.

They arrested 23-year-old Daren Mejia of Ontario, 42-year-old David Romero of Eastvale, 63-year-old Roman De Anda Sanchez of Colton, 61-year-old Refugio Jose Gonzalez of Gardena, 42-year-old Norco resident Richard E. Casiano Jr., 36-year-old Chanel Sierra White of Jurupa Valley and 40-year-old Fontana resident Xochitl Villagrana Ugarte for suspicion of shoplifting, Rodriguez said.

Redlands resident, 37-year-old Angelica Castaneda and a 14-year-old Eastvale boy were arrested for suspicion of petty theft, with the teen being released to his parents.

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Carly Crofts, 29, of Hemet and Miguel Angel Armenta, 49, of Murrieta were taken into custody Friday and booked into the Murrieta jail on suspicion of narcotics trafficking via USPS.

Crofts posted an undisclosed bond hours later and was released from custody. Armenta remained behind bars on unspecified bail.

According to the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department, the suspects were allegedly smuggling drugs to different inmates — 42-year-old Saul Arevalo of Bloomington and 32-year-old Daniel Morales Jr. of Cathedral City.

Details on the two detainees and the reasons for their detention were unavailable.

Sheriff’s Sgt. Chris Wedel said the agency’s Corrections Investigation Bureau, in coordination with the Gang Intelligence Unit, initiated a probe in November 2024 after uncovering evidence narcotics were reaching the Murrieta jail by way of the Postal Service.

In the ensuing months, sufficient evidence was gathered that pointed to the alleged suppliers and recipients, culminating in search warrants being obtained and served at Crofts’ and Armenta’s respective residences Friday morning, Wedel said.

“Investigators seized evidence related to the jail narcotics smuggling investigation,” he said.

Arevalo and Morales were notified that they had been named in the investigation. Their custody status did not change.

Jail records indicated that Arevalo has been at the county lock-up since 2017. Morales has been there since 2022.

“This investigation was part of the sheriff’s office’s ongoing mission to prevent narcotics from entering our correctional facilities,” according to Wedel.

The case was expected to be submitted to the District Attorney’s Office for review.

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Two teenagers were arrested for igniting the Hawarden Fire that destroyed several homes in the city of Riverside in July while another minor faced “serious charges,” officials confirmed Thursday.

Two of the 16-year-olds were taken into custody earlier on Thursday, Riverside Mayor Patricia Lock Dawson said, adding the brush fire, which destroyed seven homes and damaged 18 others, was caused by illegal use of fireworks.

“(The fire) caused immeasurable levels of fear among the residents who were rightly afraid for their safety,” Dawson said. “All fireworks are illegal in the city of Riverside for a reason.”

The two arrested teens were booked into a juvenile detention facilities while the other suspect would face charges out of Riverside County, the mayor explained.

Officials did not disclose the teens’ gender, schools and other details due to their age.

The Hawarden Fire, which was first reported at around 1 p.m. on July 21 as temperatures reached over 100 degrees with moderate winds.

The fire, which scorched over 600 acres, cost the city at least $1.5 million in response while the damages to the homes are estimated to be about $28 million, officials said.

Investigators said video footage showed the suspects running away in a silver pickup truck as soon as the fireworks went off.

“After canvassing the neighborhood, investigators located the silver pickup and subsequently identified three individuals as 16-year-old juveniles,” Chief Larry Gonzalez with the Riverside Police Department said. “Search warrants were obtained and served at their homes where electronic devices were seized as part of this investigation as well.”

While the fire was put contained about eight days later, those who lost their properties continue to suffer in the aftermath.

“To those who lost their homes, we pray for you. We can’t imagine the emotional stress you’ve gone through,” Riverside City Councilmember Chuck Condor said. “To those who had minor damage or no damage, you still suffered tremendous emotional scars. It’s hard for me to imagine what you all thought that day.”

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Michael Sainato

The largest union of academic workers, which represents more than 48,000 graduate student workers throughout the University of California system, will hold a strike authorization vote as early as next week in response to how universities have cracked down on students’ Gaza protests.

“The use and sanction of violent force to curtail peaceful protest is an attack on free speech and the right to demand change, and the university must sit down with students, unions, and campus organizations to negotiate, rather than escalate,” stated an announcement of the strike vote from UAW Local 4811. Earlier this year, the union voted by a margin of more than 9 to 1 in favor of supporting a ceasefire, according to the announcement.

The graduate workers last went on strike in November 2022 over a new union contract, which was the largest strike in US higher education history. They recently merged two UAW locals, 2865 and 5810, under the single UAW Local 4811.

“We have been calling on the University of California to de-escalate and negotiate with the protesters over their very urgent and moral concerns and it failed to do that and it failed to protect students and workers and allowed this violence to occur,” Rafael Jaime, co-president of UAW 4811 and a graduate worker at UCLA, told The Guardian. “We’re holding a strike authorization vote to hold the university accountable and demand the university respect the members’ right to protected speech and right to protest.”

He said the union also plans to file unfair labor practice charges against the University of California over the university’s use of LAPD against protesters and for changing policies unilaterally in response to the protests without bargaining.

“This is the defining issue of our generation and its really important for all, not just workers at the University of California but across the entire nation to speak up and to ensure every worker has the right to speak on this issue,” added Jaime. “We believe all workers, all students have a fundamental right to engage in protests and engage in free speech and universities need to respect that right.”

The United Auto Workers, with 400,000 active members and over 500,000 retirees, is the largest US union to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, which they did in December 2023.

UAW President Shawn Fain recently reaffirmed the union’s position. “Our union has been calling for a ceasefire for six months. This war is wrong and this response against students and academic workers, many of them UAW members, is wrong,” Fain said in a statement on 1 May.

Graduate student workers are also calling on the National Labor Relations Board to weigh in on how universities have been responding to Pro-Palestine protests and whether those responses violate US labor laws and collective bargaining agreements with unions on campus.

The Graduate Labor Organization at Brown University has filed several unfair labor practice charges against the university since March 2024 in regards to Pro-Palestine protests and the university’s responses to them.

Forty-one students at Brown University was arrested and charges remain despite the pro-Palestine encampment dispersing as part of negotiations which included a planned vote by the university’s highest governing body for October 2024 on divesting from companies affiliated with Israel. The charges filed by the union allege Brown University unilaterally changed protest policies without bargaining and that made threats of retaliation toward union members for participating in Pro-Palestine campus protests.

“It’s really about the university trying to leverage this fact that as graduate workers we do have student status and kind of using that as a workaround for violating labor law and this has been their playbook on a whole host of issues,” said Michael Ziegler, political director of the Graduate Labor Organization and graduate worker at Brown University. “In the past five years, we’ve had something like 20 protests on the main green and there was never any issue, the university didn’t take these actions. This is new and I think a dangerous attempt by them to clamp down on the rights of speech and protected concerted action.”

UAW Local 872, which represents around 3,000 graduate workers at USC, has recently filed an unfair labor practice charge against the university over arrests of at least five union members. The union has called for charges to be dropped against all 93 protesters who were arrested on 24 April and for the university to concede to demands from USC Divest from Death Coalition.

“USC’s summoning of LAPD riot police to arrest their own students and workers for peacefully demonstrating is abhorrent and wrong,” said Maile McCann, a Local 872 member and PhD Candidate in the Civil Engineering department at USC, in a statement on the charge. “The administration’s actions show an alarming disregard for our right as students and union members to engage in peaceful demonstrations, and their decisions have put international students in particular at serious risk. USC’s unnecessary escalation has resulted in a shameful waste of public resources for the purposes of silencing dissent.”

A spokesperson for USC said in an email, “we believe the charge is without merit and intend to defend our position before the National Labor Relations Board.”

Brown University and the University of California system did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

A spokesperson for Brown University has previously said in response to the first unfair labor practice charge, “individuals are not absolved from abiding by Brown policies by virtue of union membership.” The University of California system has not yet publicly commented on the planned strike vote by graduate student workers.

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File # G232990022

Details:

On October 26, 2023, at 10:02 a.m., Norco Sheriff’s Station deputies responded to a vehicle burglary near the 100 block of Hidden Valley Parkway in Norco. Upon their arrival, they learned that the victim had withdrawn a large amount of money and placed it inside the glove box of their vehicle before returning to the location.

While the victim was inside, a citizen observed a subject walk up to the victim’s vehicle, break a window, and climb inside. A getaway vehicle approached the victim’s vehicle and drove away once the vehicle burglar stole the victim’s money. The mode of operation in these thefts is commonly referred to as “jugging.”

Investigative leads on the whereabouts of the suspect’s vehicle led deputies to the Cabazon area, where Cabazon Sheriff’s Station deputies located and detained the occupants. Norco deputies responded and recovered most of the victim’s stolen money and evidence of the crime. The suspects, 34-year-old Isaiah Fitzgerald Moses and 33-year-old Denzel Tyrell Lawson, residents of Houston, Texas, were arrested and booked at the Robert Presley Detention Center for burglary and conspiracy, with bail set at $10,000.

Anyone with information on this investigation can contact Deputy Bryce Cooper of the Norco Sheriff’s Station at (951) 280–5212.

For media inquiries regarding this incident please contact the Media Information Bureau.

Find your latest news here at the Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle

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File # MV232260154

Details:

On August 14, 2023, at 2:08 p.m., deputies from the Moreno Valley Sheriff’s Station responded to a report of a theft from a business in the 12600 block of Frederick Street, Moreno Valley. While responding to the store the deputies were provided with a description of the three females involved in the theft, as well as the vehicle they were in. Deputies quickly arrived; however, the suspects had already left the area. The information was shared with neighboring law enforcement agencies and a short while later, the vehicle and suspects were located by Riverside Police Department officers in a parking lot near Madison Street and Garden Street, Riverside. All three suspects were detained without incident. It was later learned the three female suspects were also responsible for thefts from additional beauty supply stores in Redlands and Riverside. Thousands of dollars in fragrances and makeup were recovered from the vehicle and later returned to the appropriate retailers.

The suspects were identified as Jasmine Payne, a 32-year-old resident of Hemet, Olivia Robertson-Chandler, a 26-year-old resident of Bakersfield, and Tanganique Benard, a 26-year-old resident of Los Angeles. All three suspects were booked at the Robert Presley Detention Center for theft-related charges including burglary, organized retail theft, conspiracy, and probation violations.

Anyone with additional information related to this case is encouraged to contact Deputy Daisy Ayala at the Moreno Valley Sheriff’s Station and 951-486-6700.

For media inquiries regarding this incident please contact the Media Information Bureau.

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File # T231600011

Details:

On June 9, 2023, at 4:26 AM, deputies from the Palm Desert Station were dispatched to an alarm call in the 73400 block of El Paseo, Palm Desert. Upon arriving, deputies determined a burglary had occurred. The investigation revealed that Michael James Graham, a 53-year-old White male adult from Lakewood, and Ali Danielle Castillo, a 27-year-old Hispanic female adult from Orange, conspired to steal merchandise from a closed business. Graham used a window punch to break a window to the business and steal merchandise valued at approximately $40,000, while Castillo was the look-out and getaway driver. Deputies located the suspects in their getaway vehicle, a White Chevy Suburban, in the unincorporated area of Anza. A search of their vehicle was conducted and the stolen property was recovered.

Graham and Castillo were booked into the John Benoit Detention Center for burglary, conspiracy to commit burglary, possession of stolen property, vandalism, and violation of probation.

Anyone with any information regarding this incident is encouraged to contact Deputy Pouchoulen at (760) 836-1600 or call anonymously at (760) 341-STOP (7867) and reference incident # T231600011.

For media inquiries regarding this incident please contact the Media Information Bureau.

Find your latest news here at the Hemet & San Jacinto Chronicle

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File # GE231380001, GE231380003, GE231380004

Details:

On Thursday, May 18, 2023, at 6:00 a.m. the Coachella Valley Violent Crime Gang Task Force with the assistance of Riverside County Sheriff’s Office Special Enforcement Bureau, United States Border Patrol Tactical Unit (BORTAC), Riverside County Gang Task Force Region 3, Region 4 and Region 7, Riverside County Sheriff’s Thermal Station Special Investigations Unit, La Quinta Special Enforcement Team, California Highway Patrol K9 Team and Riverside County PACT, served search warrants at three residences in the eastern Coachella Valley. Task Force Officers executed search warrants at residences located in the 84000 block of Lingayan Avenue in the unincorporated community of Indio, the 80000 block of Avenue 46 in the city of Indio and the 80000 block of Columbia Avenue in the city of Indio. During the service of the search warrants Gang Task Force Officers located four illegally possessed firearms including a loaded non-serialized 9mm semi-auto handgun with extended magazine, a loaded .40 caliber semi-automatic handgun with extended magazine, a .44 caliber revolver style pistol, and a loaded 9mm semi-automatic rifle. The following subjects were arrested during the operation:

• Gustavo Miranda Madera, 23 of Indio for possession of unregistered firearm and possession of non-serialized firearm
• Julian Perez Morgan, 22 of Indio for felon in possession of ammunition
• Diego Perez Morgan, 18 of Indio for possession of unregistered loaded firearm, gang member with a firearm and gang member with ammunition
• Damion Albert Perez, 25 of Indio for gang member with a firearm and gang member with ammunition
• Albert Perez, 53 of Indio for possession of unregistered Firearm
• All of the above listed subjects were subsequently booked at the John Benoit Detention Center in Indio.

The Coachella Valley Violent Crime Gang Task Force is committed to creating safe and secure neighborhoods free of violent crime and gang activity. If you have any information about this crime, please contact CVVCGTF member Deputy J. Chavez or Officer Coddington at (760) 836-1600. If you have non-emergency information regarding gang activity, please use our online Gang Task Force Tip Form or call 951-922-7601.

For media inquiries regarding this incident please contact the Media Information Bureau.

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