Illegal linked to $1M drug bust
BY ROBERT MOORE, Tribune Staff Writer

A suspected illegal alien has been linked to what’s being described as the largest and most sophisticated marijuana-growing operation busted in the Lakeway Area for more than a decade, a law enforcement official said this morning.

On Thursday, a multi-agency team cut between 8,000 and 12,000 marijuana plants that were growing in a massive field in western Greene County, according to Scott Castle, director of the Third Judicial District Drug Task Force.

"I can honestly say I’ve got a dump truck load," Castle said this morning.

He estimates the marijuana would have had a street value approaching $1 million.

The field, which measured approximately 75 yards by 700 yards, was guarded by four armed men who had set up camp in an abandoned log barn in the remote Sinking Springs Road area, according to Castle.

Law enforcement officials arrested one of the guards, a Hispanic man who appeared to be in his late 50s, and confiscated the loaded .22-caliber rifle he was carrying.

Castle says the man was did not have identification, and he’s operating on the assumption that the guard entered the United States illegally.

Another Hispanic guard dropped his loaded AK-47 assault rifle and escaped on foot with two other Hispanic guards, according to Castle.

Task force members, along with personnel with the Greene County Sheriff’s Department and Tennessee Highway Patrol, were carrying standard-issue .40-caliber sidearms.

Castle says that if the man who was carrying the AK-47 would have chosen to stand and exchange gunfire, the results could have been disastrous.

"It would have been a problem," he said. "It would have been a big one."

The task force director said that federal agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement planned to question the captured man some time today in Greeneville in an effort to learn his identity and the identities of his accomplices.

"It was a well-planned effort," said Castle, who’s been with the Third DTF since 1996. "They actually had been living there... It’s the biggest (marijuana field) I’ve ever been in since I’ve been with the task force, and it’s probably one of the best hidden I’ve ever seen."

Castle says the he strongly suspects that the landowner, who had yet to be identified this morning, knew his property was being used to grow marijuana.

The abandoned barn where the guards had been living contained enough provisions to last them for approximately three days, according to Castle.

The task force director says the men apparently were using the barn as a processing center.

"We have several pounds of bud that they’d cut off in the last several days," Castle said.

The field where the marijuana was found is located approximately three miles from the Greene-Cocke county line. Earlier this week, Cocke County officials cut approximately 4,500 marijuana plants in a secluded location.

Castle says officials have established no link between the marijuana found in Cocke County and the massive marijuana field in Greene County.

Castle said he received a tip about the marijuana field from a farmer.

Approximately two weeks ago, Castle said, task force agents received another tip about a grow operation in western Greene County.

They investigated, but didn’t find any marijuana. Castle said authorities searched an area about a mile from where the thousands of plants were located Thursday.

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