Posted on 09/08/2017 8:49:57 AM PDT by kitchen
Well before dawn Thursday, about a dozen local and federal law enforcement agents drove to an abandoned well pad near De Beque, shouldered some 60 pounds of gear each and began a three-mile trek through the chilly dark of the Colorado River banks by way of Union Pacific railroad tracks.
Agents with night optics peered down from cliffs on either side of Interstate 70, and three Mesa County Sheriff’s Office boats took to the river as the team made its way to one of two river islands they believed were home to a massive illegal marijuana grow guarded by three armed men.
A Drug Enforcement Agency plane and helicopter provided support from above and Colorado State Patrol troopers posted on a closed lane of I-70 to cut off escape. Another team headed to the second island, where they believed they would find more plants but no campsite.
Navigating a dense tangle of tamarisk and cottonwood trees and hampered by the canyon’s infamously poor cellphone and radio reception, the first team surprised the three men in a makeshift camp, who instantly fled.
Two of the three were quickly caught, at about 7 a.m. — both young men whose names were not released by the DEA Thursday.
More than 9,200 marijuana plants were collected between the two islands, which one federal employee described as not more than a “good football’s throw” from I-70.
“They’re pretty brazen,” said Steven Knight, group supervisor for the DEA’s Grand Junction office. “If you were driving down I-70 and pulled over, you could see the marijuana.”
Agents and officers Thursday evening were still looking for the third suspect, described as a Hispanic man wearing a black T-shirt. Knight said during the day he believed the third man was hiding out on the small but thickly vegetated island where the men’s campsite was found.
“You get in there, it’s easy to hide,” he said.
The De Beque Canyon Grow case began in May, Knight said, although it was really triggered by an odd 2016 event. A man was caught trying to sneak into the river islands area with some 8,000 marijuana seeds in his pockets.
In May this year, a Bureau of Land Management employee and a sheriff’s deputy decided to go up a nearby cliff and try to see if anybody ever returned to the spot, Knight said.
“They went up top and looked down,” he said. “They saw what looked like a gas can and some equipment. … We just started watching them from the cliffs up high.”
Knight said surveillance showed what appeared to be three men living on the smaller island and patrolling two grows with rifles.
For the next several months, Knight said, they watched the trio to learn more, waiting until the plants they were tending were closer to harvest.
“There was no hurry on our part,” he said. “They were isolated.”
Thursday morning turned into a waiting game for agents and officers staged at Island Acres State Park while the team on the river island played hide-and-seek with the third suspect.
Around 9 a.m. the first of the two suspects — shirtless with a bandaged cut on one of his bare feet — was brought to the staging area, where he was ushered to a shaded picnic table area and advised of his rights.
Half an hour later, when the second suspect arrived at the park with a Colorado State Patrol trooper, the first suspect grinned and called out to him.
Knight, walking between the two, spun around.
“Hey,” Knight shouted. “Cállate” — “Shut up,” in Spanish.
The suspects told agents they were cousins from Sinaloa state in Mexico, Knight told his team. The first suspect claimed about 6,000 plants were on the two islands.
“They’ve been sent here to set up this grow,” Knight said.
It was after 11 a.m. when the DEA helicopter started lifting slings full of hundreds of uprooted marijuana plants from the river islands and dropping them off at Island Acres State Park, where curious campers stood watching from a short distance and buzzed by in golf carts.
By mid-afternoon, the team had found much more than 6,000 marijuana plants; according to DEA spokesman Jim Gothe the final tally topped more than 9,200 plants.
The two suspects were due to be arraigned this afternoon in federal court in Grand Junction.
Knight said that while outdoor grows of comparable sizes have been raided in the region in the past, the De Beque Canyon grow is the largest operation he’s dealt with since transferring to Grand Junction a year ago.
“But the boldness of doing it right next to the highway?” Knight said. “And these guys are not from Colorado.”
Some 50 to 60 law enforcement officers from multiple agencies were involved in the operation, Knight said, including representatives of the sheriff’s office, the Grand Junction Police Department, the Western Colorado Drug Task Force, Colorado State Patrol, the FBI, the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Marshals Service, the National Guard, and DEA operatives from the West Slope as well as Salt Lake City and Colorado Springs.
Knight praised the sheer physical effort of the team that responded to the islands and “pushed through the brush they could hardly get through.”
“A pretty heroic effort,” he said. “I’m proud of them."
“That is true, right up until some MS13 gangbanger cartel types find out you’re growing on “their turf”, then it’s either buy from them, grow for them, sell for them, or you and your family are dead.
That is not hyperbole or exaggeration. That is how these people operate, and they are very good at it.”
My sister-in-law reports that in Pueblo, CO the Cartel has moved in. Scary.
Fact is, Nationally they should just legalize it. If folks want to grow it like tobacco, then let them. If others wish to buy then so be it. Those lib states look at weed as tax revenue. I say legalize but let folks also grow their own if they wish.
How "popular" is moonshine compared to legal alcohol? Or compared to during Prohibition?
Just like happened when Prohibition ended? LMAO!
>Me: I think the right analogy is to ending prohibition, but finding that moonshine production was popular.
>>You: How “popular” is moonshine compared to legal alcohol? Or compared to during Prohibition?
Now—probably not so much. Back in the day, moonshine was pretty popular. If it weren’t, there wouldn’t have been objections in the South about the “revenooers”, or romanticized movies about moonshine running like “Thunder Road” (starring Robert Mitchum).
But that’s not really the point. The point is that what is now called legalization for pot is more “legalization under heavy government control and costs.”
If you compare the alcohol situation, you have to take motivation into account. In comparison to pot, even regulated alcohol with all its taxes is affordable (any poor bum can afford to be an alky). It’s also rather bulky.
In comparison, pot isn’t all that bulky (a pound of pot is worth a lot more than a 16 ounce can of beer), and the taxes appear to be higher relative to the cost of production. As is usually the case, the motive is profit. There isn’t all that much profit by comparison in moonshine today.
So, it’s the operating parameters—relative legal versus illegal product cost—and value per unit bulk—that determine popularity of contraband. That’s just black market economic incentive. The analogy between the two products, though, is IMHO pretty good, even if the details are different.
These 3 guys will be killed by the drug cartel for getting caught. Their families too.
Aye, there's the rub - it's entirely possible to tax legal pot heavily enough to perpetuate a significant black market, and some legalizing states may well be doing just that. Here's hoping they wise up.
Exactly what I was getting at. Taxes and hassles. Everybody understands the financial side. But, in addition, who wants to get on a government list of any sort if they don’t have to? For example, if Sessions had his way, he’d link an MJ authorization list to your second amendment rights.
Some famous judge once noted that, “The ability to tax is the ability to destroy.”
“marijuana becomes MORE illegal through the various mitigation laws which must be passed.”
Even makes the cops that refuse to work with the Feds work with the Feds.
I guarantee it's going on all over. Huge easy $$$$
It's all in cash too!!
“Sanctuary Islands”
Snort! But that makes perfect sense. “Get off our sovereign island!”
I hadn't heard that one gets on any "list" by buying legal pot.
In Medical MJ states, you have to get a specific ID card. Is that list enough?
And, in recreational states, your credit card info is at the stores... who’s to say they don’t retain them, or that they aren’t available in their records?
But, it’s the first one—the ID card—that I find bothersome.
Well, that depends, doesn't it? Are we talking about growing for personal use or for sale?
How are they going to find out unless you spill the beans that you're growing it?
That is not hyperbole or exaggeration. That is how these people operate, and they are very good at it.
There aren't a lot of stories in the news about MS-13 going after people who are growing for personal use.
I searched, but couldn't find any. Have you seen any stories like this? If so, could you provide a linky?
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