Thread: Feds Uproot 1 MILLION Pot Plants in 7 Western States

Feds Uproot 1M Pot Plants in 7 Western States



SACRAMENTO, Calif. September 6, 2012 (AP)

A federal crackdown on marijuana growing in seven western states has uprooted more than 1 million plants, about two-thirds of which were found on public land.

The U.S. attorney's office in Sacramento says the pot found on public lands was worth nearly $1.5 billion. The agency released total figures for the July and August raids in Arizona, California, Idaho, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Washington on Wednesday.

More than three-quarters of the pot plants were found growing in California, about 840,000 in all.

Authorities found about 93,000 plants in Washington, with smaller amounts in the remaining states.

Feds Uproot 1M Pot Plants in 7 Western States - ABC News

Pot operation busted in Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest

Law enforcement authorities announced Wednesday that they have broken up a multimillion-dollar marijuana-growing operation in the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest.
Federal prosecutors have filed charges against seven people in what a top state Department of Justice official called "one of the largest marijuana-grow operations we've encountered in the state of Wisconsin."

Authorities are destroying an estimated 15,000 marijuana plants worth approximately $15 million, said Ed Wall, chief of the state Division of Criminal Investigation, and Justice Department spokeswoman Dana Brueck. It will take until Thursday to airlift all the pot plants out of the remote, forested Oconto County area by helicopter, Wall said.

It was the third time in three years that a pot-growing operation has been found in the forest, Wall said. In Wisconsin and other states, marijuana growers are attracted by the isolation and plentiful water found in national forests and other public lands, he said.

The latest investigation started when a fisherman noticed suspicious activity in early June, Wall said. According to a criminal complaint filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Milwaukee, the fisherman contacted the state Department of Natural Resources, which brought in law enforcement agencies.

Agents from the U.S. Forest Service flew overhead and spotted at least three marijuana-growing sites along the South Branch of the Oconto River, west of Oconto County Highway T and south of state Highway 64, the complaint says. Law enforcement agents also set up cameras nearby, the complaint says.

Those cameras picked up a 1998 Pontiac Grand Prix registered to Maria Blanca Garcia of Brandon making several trips to and from the growing sites, the complaint says. Agents then secretly attached tracking devices to that car and a white pickup truck, also registered to her, the complaint says.

On Saturday, authorities stopped the Grand Prix and a red pickup also seen near the growing site and arrested Garcia and five others believed to be staying at her Brandon apartment: Miguel Sanchez Garcia, Jose Alfredo Sierra-Aguilar, Pedro Enfante-Ramirez, Guillermo Chavez-Carrion and a Livingston, Calif., man named Juan Carlos Cervantes-Contreras, the complaint says.
All are facing federal charges of manufacturing marijuana with the intent to distribute it. Also facing that charge is a seventh individual whose name was redacted from the complaint. An Idaho state trooper stopped that person in the white pickup truck last week, the complaint says, but it was not clear Wednesday whether that suspect was in custody or why his name was redacted.

In addition to the Division of Criminal Investigation, the DNR and the Forest Service, the investigation involved the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission, Wisconsin National Guard, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Border Patrol, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations, the Oconto County sheriff's office, the State Crime Lab and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Pot operation busted in Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest - m.JSOnline.com