More than a dozen people were arrested by county police and federal agents on four islands and in California yesterday as part of a crackdown on an interstate crystal methamphetamine smuggling ring, according to law enforcement officials.

Officers and agents on O'ahu, Kaua'i, the Big Island and Maui, working in coordination with law enforcement in California, made the arrests yesterday. Law enforcement agents executed search warrants at more than a half-dozen private homes and businesses and seized drugs, guns, currency and property.

The group allegedly was smuggling crystal meth and small quantities of other drugs from California into the state by mail and courier.

The arrests were made and search warrants executed after federal grand jury indictments for more than a dozen people were unsealed here yesterday in U.S. District Court.

U.S. attorney Ed Kubo declined comment ahead of a news conference scheduled for 1:30 p.m. today.

The investigation was a collaboration of the Drug Enforcement Administration; FBI; police on four islands; Immigration and Customs Enforcement; and the bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Most of the crystal methamphetamine sold in Hawai'i is produced in Mexico and California, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

Mexican drug-trafficking organizations ship the drug to Hawai'i from California via couriers on commercial flights and parcels sent through the mail.

Yesterday's busts mark the second time in four months that state and federal law enforcement targeted dealers shipping the product to Hawai'i from the Mainland.

On June 6, officers arrested seven people on O'ahu and in Las Vegas in coordinated raids on a suspected narcotics cartel that allegedly shipped more than $350,000 worth of crystal meth from Las Vegas to Honolulu.

Three men were arrested in Las Vegas, and four others in Pupukea and Wahiawa, after an indictment accused the group of conspiring to ship more than 10 pounds of ice to Honolulu to sell for profit, according to a law enforcement official and documents filed in U.S. District Court.

Reach Peter Boylan at pboylan@honoluluadvertiser.com.