Thread: Southern Oregon Pot Growers

Police round up $12.5 million in marijuana (2:35 p.m.)
Police seized 2,500 marijuana plants with a street value estimated at up to $12.5 million on Monday and arrested two armed men they found at the gardens.

Rafael Santoya-Pineda and Noel Tadia-Arreguin are in Jackson County Jail on immigration holds today.

The plants, each 4 to 6 feet tall, grew in scattered gardens on three acres of Bureau of Land Management property near Hyatt Lake, Jackson County Sheriff Mike Winters said. Plants of that size can produce about a pound of marijuana, which would have a value of around $5,000 on the street at the retail level, he said.

Officials had watched the growing operation, believed to be linked to a Mexican drug cartel, and swept in Monday to destroy it just before harvest time, sheriff’s Lt. Pat Rowland said.

SWAT teams from Jackson and Douglas counties and Oregon State Police, along with officers from the Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted Monday’s raid.

Investigators pulled out the plants, hoisted them in nets with a helicopter and filled a 10-yard dump truck. The plants were taken to a mill and burned, Winters said. Evidence also was collected at the scene during the day-long police effort.

— Anita Burke

http://www.mailtribune.com/update/update.html#pot

Hey McCain, Bush, I guess more jobs Americans won't do.

American_made:

Hey there. Good catch.
Thanks for posting this one - in our very backyard no less.

I know this type of thing has been going on around here for many years, but I think this is one of the biggest hauls I have seen - at least in a very long time.

Yep, you got it right - just 'come here to work'...uh-huh.

What the story does not say is they were guarding this place with guns. Some un-suspecting individual who wonders into their field could have been shot and most likely would have been. It was announced on the radio that they were armed when busted.

I saw a program a while back on the forrestry service being afraid to go in and dismantle their growing operations until the crop was finished. It is absolutely amazing to me that these people get away with growing pot in OUR national forests. The environmental impact is devistaing. The wild animals get into the chemicals that they have in barrels on site and the soil is ruined. They actually use a hose system to get water from the streams to water it.

American_made:

Hey there, how ya' doin?

About the topic... Yeah, I'm not surprised. Here's a bit more on that theme:

I have a brother that lives within about 1 hour of the area and he works in the 'natural resources' realm. He knows a lot of local folks that work with/for USFS, BLM, State Agencies, etc. and says that every year or two, a person goes out into the less accessible areas of the forest - and just 'does not come back'.

In the past (don't know if this is still true or not...), he told me the 'plot masters' (call 'em what you want) prefer a certain type of booby trap using shotguns/shotgun shells aimed at ground level around a perimeter of the plot or on trails leading up to them. The unknowing straggler is peppered with shot around the legs - and can't just 'walk away'. Bottom line: be careful when walking through the woods, know where you're going, and watch the ground a lot.