Thread: Arrest made in Chester Co. marijuana bust

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Arrest made in Chester Co. marijuana bust
By Charles D. Perry · The Herald - Updated 07/26/06 - 12:25 AM
The 6,500 marijuana plants discovered in southern Chester County last week represent an illegal immigrant pot farming system that authorities say is spreading across the state.
Chester Sheriff Robby Benson said his office arrested one man in the case, but investigators believe the man was just one in a group of workers, the rest of whom are still at large. A State Law Enforcement Division helicopter crew spotted the plants last Wednesday while heading back to Columbia after a search for fugitives in Fort Mill.

Benson said investigators have been talking to 21-year-old Jose Valdez, the man arrested Thursday when police found him near the fields looking for water.

Valdez, an illegal Hispanic immigrant, speaks no English, and investigators have been communicating with him through an interpreter, Benson said. He was being held at the Chester County Detention Center on Tuesday on charges of trespassing and producing marijuana. He had been denied bond on both charges, a jail spokesman said.

Operations using immigrants making way to area

Benson said Valdez was part of a group of workers brought to the area to tend marijuana crops in a dense forest. The property owner had no idea they were there. The workers lived in the woods and someone -- police don't know who -- brought them food, water and a little cash that they survived on.

"That's the way a lot of these operations go," Benson said, adding that police across the state are seeing more of these farms.

The operations are made up of Hispanics brought from California to places such as Chester County to grow marijuana, Benson said.

York County law enforcement officials also have seen similar farms, said Lt. Kelly Lovelace of the county's multijurisdictional drug unit.

A few years ago, investigators found marijuana plants growing off S.C. 49., Lovelace said. Police waited to see who was tending the vegetation, and when two Hispanic men showed up to take care of their crop, police caught one, although the other escaped.

In another incident several years ago, police found plants growing in the woods off Henry's Knob Road, Lovelace said. There they also found a camp site, complete with camouflage netting, cans of beans and containers of water.

Lovelace has seen pictures of the big pot farms in California. And based on what's going on locally, she thinks the same type of system has arrived.

"I think it's made its way here," she said.

Charles D. Perry · 329-4068 | cperry@heraldonline.com

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I wonder if Bush knows just how "hard-working" these drug people are. Maybe he can add them to his speeches. Geez, growing pot and smuggling drugs is got to be backbreaking, but maybe they have the whole family involved......just a good hard-working family value system.

They won't do anything to them. We had some of them here that were in possession of drugs, charged with forgery, embezelment, etc. The lawyers got their bond reduced and they went free never to show for court. The mexican consul just bails them out and they are on the run to another town to commit crimes. We have inherited the corruptness of Mexico, the drug dealing, the gangs and all the other crimes. We live in a lawless land. Our constitution is being mocked and thrown aside and our laws are being used against us. Law abiding citizens are being made out to be the bad guys by our own lawmakers while drug dealers and gang members are referred to as hard working people. If we complain that our laws are not being enforced we are being labeled as racist, bigots, and prejudice. God will no longer bless this lawless land. Our country is being destroyed.