I heard this story on NBC's eve news on Saturday and they briefly mentioned the people recruited to grow Marijuana were recent immigrants, no ethnicity specified. I did a search for the story and none of the arrestees were named, over and over again. There was just a reference to 35 arrests. Finally one story written from it's home base, New Jersey, rather than it's Florida operation, Port St. Lucie, named some of the people involved. You'll find the names in the last paragraph of the article.

Jersey firm's pitch: Put down some (pot) roots in Florida
10 former Hudson County residents among 35 charged in scheme
Thursday, September 21, 2006
BY MARK MUELLER
Star-Ledger Staff
The come-on must have sounded appealing: Live rent-free for two years in sunny Florida and earn a bundle of cash for little work while you're there.

The catch: You'll be sharing your new home with pot plants. Scores and scores of pot plants.

That novel pitch, floated by an unidentified New Jersey business, was at the heart of a massive marijuana-growing operation busted in Port St. Lucie, Fla., federal authorities announced yesterday.

Ten former Hudson County residents, all accused of accepting the offer, were among 35 people indicted on federal drug charges in the four-month investigation, which uncovered a sprawling, sophisticated network that included more than 50 grow houses in Port St. Lucie County.

Each of the homes had from 34 to 322 plants, yielding between $136,000 and $1.3 million per harvest, and some of the homes produced three to four harvests a year, said R. Alexander Acosta, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida.

"Today, we have effectively dismantled a well-organized and well-financed marijuana grow-house operation with tentacles that stretched from South Florida to New York," Acosta said in a statement. "But we are not done yet."

Indeed, the U.S. attorney, citing the ongoing probe, released no information about the New Jersey business or how it offered the deals.

As outlined by Acosta, the business dangled lucrative "relocation packages" to recruit people, offering to buy a home and pay 100 percent of the financing. The homes were outfitted with growing equipment ahead of the move-in date.

For each plant harvested, the new residents earned $1,000, or about one-quarter of its value.

After two years, the new owners could continue growing marijuana or opt out of the deal, in which case the home would be sold and the profits evenly split between the residents and the New Jersey financiers, Acosta said.

According to court documents on the U.S. attorney's Web site, the investigation began May 8 when police responded to a call about a man armed with a machete outside a Port St. Lucie home.

In the yard, officers found Amado Chaviano, 42, formerly of North Bergen, as he tried to hide. Inside the home, police found the remains of 39 marijuana plants that had been recently harvested and documents leading to other addresses.

Day after day, investigators continued to find new grow-houses, some of them home to children.

In addition to Chaviano, the former New Jerseyans were identified as Luisa Alvarez, 41, and Maria Cardenas, 44, both of North Bergen; Jose Guerra, 53, Celia Martinez, 49, and Bartolo A. Concepcion, 47, all of Union City; and Felicito Ceballos, 58, Hermogenes Jaquez, 46, Adriana Sanchez, 28, and Carlos Jiminez, 33, all of West New York.

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