[Noozhawk note: Jose Farias, arrested Saturday during a multiagency sweep, was not eligible for bail because of a probation violation. An earlier version of this story was incorrect, and the article has been updated below.]

Operation Apehanger, a Santa Barbara Regional Narcotic Enforcement Team sweep of seven Santa Barbara locations, resulted in 12 arrests Saturday, but local law-enforcement officials said Monday they aren’t stopping there.

Standing behind a cache of seized weapons during a news conference Monday, Santa Barbara Police Chief Cam Sanchez, joined by representatives of other agencies, said the investigation into the drug-trafficking and illegal firearms operations is ongoing.

He said the investigation began about eight months ago, with Santa Barbara Police Department narcotics detectives looking into methamphetamine and cocaine sales. After time, it grew into a far bigger issue with the discovery of illegal weapons possessed by the same people dealing drugs, so the department sought assistance, Sanchez said.

SBRNET joined with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and other agencies for the investigation that culminated in Saturday’s arrests.

The operation’s name comes from a primary suspect who rode a motorcycle with the oversized, sometimes illegal handlebars dubbed “apehangers.”

The timing of the raids was carefully planned to keep the community safe and to get as many arrests as possible, Sanchez said. “We knew who the targets were and we knew what the cache would be,” he said.

People remain living in some of the targeted residences as not everyone was a suspect, Sanchez said. Police knew who was in each house long before hitting the doors and worked with Child Protective Services to take children out of the environments and place them with other family members or other care, he said.

The neighborhoods where the raids took place are safe communities and shouldn’t be labeled otherwise because of these unfortunate incidents, he said.

Search warrants were issued to seven residences around Santa Barbara simultaneously at 8 a.m. Saturday and resulted in arrests and the seizure of many weapons and narcotics — including cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamine and illegal mushrooms. A residence across the street from Monroe Elementary School was housing more than 80 marijuana plants in various stages of growth, task force commander Ken Bambrick said.

The collaboration is a message to suspects and criminals that the community will not tolerate crime and that the state will provide resources to investigate it, said Will Telish, a special agent with the Department of Justice’s division of law enforcement.

Santa Barbara SWAT teams were used for two of the residences — including the home across from Monroe Elementary — as the suspects had access to illegal weapons. The Santa Barbara School District was not informed of the investigation or planned raids, as it all “went down” on a Saturday while classes were not in session, Sanchez said.

The majority of the firearms were taken from those two residences, and the cache included fully automatic AK-47 assault rifles, semi-automatic assault rifles, handguns and high-capacity magazines.

Law enforcement officials said they’re not yet sure where the guns all came from or whether they’ve been used in criminal activity, but the guns will be tested and investigated further.

Some of the guns are banned in California — law enforcement officials can’t typically buy them anymore, but can keep those they had before the ban — and are only legally used by military or tactical units such as SWAT teams, Telish said.

The automatic weapons can fire off dozens of rounds in a matter of seconds, and many of the assault rifles, while being semi-automatics, had high-caliber magazines that can do a lot more damage, he said.

Narcotics trafficking and illegal weapons are quite a threat together, Telish said. “The main reason they have these weapons is because drugs are a violent trade,” he said.

More than 100 officers and agents from various agencies participated in the investigation and Saturday’s raids. Collaborators include the California Highway Patrol, the Guadalupe Police Department, the Lompoc Police Department, the Santa Barbara County’s District Attorney’s Office and Probation Department, the Santa Maria Police Department, the Santa Barbara County’s Sheriff’s Department, the Los Angeles Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the San Luis Obispo County Narcotics Task Force, in addition to the aforementioned Bureau for Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the Santa Barbara Police Department.

Twelve suspects were arrested, including the seven suspects targeted in the investigation. The numerous charges included possession of narcotics for sale, possession of illegal firearms, conspiracy to distribute illegal firearms and child endangerment. One suspect was already in custody at the time of arrest.

The 11 suspects, ages 18 to 52, who were booked into the Santa Barbara County Jail and faced the following charges on Saturday were:

» Keith Brown, 29, on charges of possession of marijuana for sale, possession of dangerous drugs and felony child endangerment. Bail was set at $100,000.

» Thomas Anthony Dominguez, 52, on charges of marijuana cultivation, possession of stolen property, conspiracy to distribute illegal firearms and possession of illegal firearms. Bail was set at $250,000.

» Thomas Edward Dominguez, 35, on charges of possession of cocaine for sale, child endangerment, possession of illegal firearms (machine guns), conspiracy to distribute illegal firearms and parole violation. He is not eligible for bail because of the parole violation.

» Jacob Farias, 18, on charges of conspiracy to distribute illegal firearms, possession of burglary tools and marijuana cultivation. Bail was set at $250,000.

» Jose Farias, 47, on charges of conspiracy to distribute illegal firearms and violation of felony probation. He is not eligible for bail because of the probation violation.

» Michael Finerty, 26, on charges of possession of illegal mushrooms for sale. Bail was set at $30,000.

» Virginia Highfield, 30, on charges of parole violation, felon in possession of firearms and conspiracy to distribute illegal firearms. She is not eligible for bail because of the parole violation.

» Robert Maynez, 51, on charges of cocaine sales, possession of illegal firearms (machine guns) and conspiracy to distribute illegal firearms. Bail was set at $250,000.

» Micah McCabe, 37, on charges of conspiracy to distribute illegal firearms and felon in possession of firearms. Bail was set at $250,000.

» Chrysta Ramirez, 28, on charges of felony child endangerment. Bail was set at $100,000.

» Alejandro Raya, 42, on charges of possession of illegal firearms (machine guns), felon in possession of firearms and conspiracy to distribute illegal firearms. Bail was set at $250,000.

— Noozhawk staff writer Giana Magnoli can be reached at gmagnoli@noozhawk.com.