Lou Dobbs 9/15/06

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/ ... dt.01.html

Mexican drug rings using U.S. national forests to grow marijuana. We'll have that special report, and a great deal more, straight ahead.

DOBBS: Tonight this nation's national forests are being overrun by Mexican drug cartels and their marijuana-growing operations. We reported earlier this week on a massive marijuana bust in a national forest in Northern California, 800 miles from the Mexican border. Officials are almost certain that Mexican drug gangs are behind this operation, and many more around the country.

CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT : We accompanied law enforcement agents on a massive bust of a marijuana-growing operation in Northern California this week.

In two days, sheriff's deputies, the FBI, and others, seized 25,000 marijuana plants, weighing more than six tons with a street value of $125 million. They also seized evidence linking the operation to Mexican drug traffickers, but the growers got away.

SHERIFF RICK RIGGINS, SISKIYOU COUNTY, CALIF.: These guys work up there seven days a week, they live up there. And so these guys are in very good shape. They have their exits all planned.

WIAN: But there may be a break in the case. The Siskiyou County sheriff's department says it has seven illegal aliens in custody. They were discovered by local residents just a few miles from the pot farms. So far this year California's justice department has eradicated 1.2 million marijuana plants, worth nearly $5 billion, mostly on public land such as national forests.

SCOTT MCGREGOR, U.S. ATTORNEY, EAST CA. DISTRICT: Literally without exception, in terms of these very large groves, on the federal public lands over the last three years, every one of them -- in terms of the suspects that we've caught and the evidence that has led us to who we believe the perpetrators were involved, Mexican nationals.

WIAN: In California, the number of plants seized in marijuana gardens has doubled in just two years. Mexican methamphetamine traffickers are using proceeds in that business to diversify in marijuana. Among the consequences of the pot farms, devastating environmental damage from deforestation, trash and irrigation systems.

MCGREGOR: They also will throw chemicals in these and bags of fertilizer, which will leach into the water system.

JOHN GAINES, CALIF. BUREAU OF NARC ENFORCEMENT: These are all damage to our natural resources that our citizens, you know, shouldn't have to put up from the occupying force of foreigners, that are coming in here and taking over our land.

WIAN: As the marijuana gardens grow in size and the law enforcement efforts intensify, agents say traffickers are becoming more violent, and are a significant threat to recreational users of our national parks and forests. Now the FBI is still looking for hard evidence that the seven illegal aliens in custody in Siskiyou County are directly related to those marijuana-growing operations. If they can't find the evidence, the men will be deported, possibly within the next day or two.

See complete story and photos here. We appreciate Casey Wian contacting TheTownCrier when we first presented this story last spring and that it was aired nationally. Oregon and California are not the only states experiencing this:

http://towncriernews.blogspot.com/2006/ ... miles.html