UPDATE 6:50 P.M.: Kevin Hoover of The Arcata Eye has more on the Arcata raids.

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The Lost Coast Outpost‘s Kym Kemp has been all over today’s federal raids around the county. Read her post for details, but here’s a precis: The Minneapolis office of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office has conducted three raids – in Bayside, Petrolia and Salmon Creek – in conjunction with a federal investigation out of South Dakota.

The owner of the Bayside property raided is named Brett Mcfarland. The owner of the Salmon Creek property is named Jaymar Adams. As we have been unable to locate the precise location of the Petrolia action, we have been unable to definitively name the owner of that property. However, until recently a man named Sean Mcfarland was a land partner to Adams in the Salmon Creek property. Sean Mcfarland now owns property and lives in Petrolia.

According to their respective profiles, Adams and both Mcfarlands have ties to South Dakota. Sean Mcfarland is listed as having attended South Dakota State University. On June 15, Brett Mcfarland spoke of visiting family around Sioux Falls and posted the following message:

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement office – a subdivision of the Department of Homeland Security – is best known for its efforts to curb illegal immigration, but it also maintains “Drug Enforcement Task Forces” that “[bring] to bear [the agency’s] investigative expertise in money laundering and bulk cash smuggling in the fight against drug trafficking.” A Times-Standard reporter today noted a U-Haul that “reeked of marijuana” at the Bayside raid.

An ICE spokesman earlier today told the Lost Coast Outpost that any further information in the investigation will be released by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in South Dakota.