Posted on 08/24/2006 7:58:17 AM PDT by conservativecorner
In a large raid preceding the harvest season, the Jackson County Sheriff's Department has seized 2,500 marijuana plants with a street value estimated at up to $12.5 million.
Two men found at the scattered gardens near Hyatt Lake on Monday remain in Jackson County Jail on immigration holds and the investigation is continuing, Jackson County Sheriff Mike Winters 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.
The SWAT teams detained two armed Hispanic men found at the gardens. Rafael Santoya-Pineda, no age or address listed, and Noel Tadia-Arreguin, no age or address listed, both are being held at the Jackson County Jail on immigration holds, officials said.
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.
The plants, each 4 to 6 feet tall, grew in scattered gardens on three acres of Bureau of Land Management property near Hyatt Lake, 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.
"This is a serious business and people need to be careful in the woods," Winters said.
With the marijuana harvest season approaching and bow hunting season just around the corner, the sheriff worries about possible conflicts between people enjoying the forests legally and those using public and private forest lands for illegal endeavors.
Law enforcement officials have prepared a pamphlet warning that large growing operations are becoming more prevalent and can be booby-trapped. Authorities have found guns, explosive devices and aggressive defenses such as barbed wire fences, look-out stands in trees, fish hooks hung at eye level and pits filled with sharpened stakes at such operations, the pamphlet said.
The pamphlet advises hunters and hikers to watch out for irrigation systems or other evidence of cultivation such as garden tools or bags of fertilizer in the woods, isolated camps in areas far from recreation areas, and camouflage tarps or mesh coverings.
People who spot such evidence should leave immediately, backing down the path they came in on if necessary, and contact law enforcement, Winters said.
They're just farmers coming here for a better life..............
"Be careful out there. Little Joe's planting the Ponderosa!"
Doing the jobs Americans are legally prevented from doing.
[Insert Cheech and Chong joke here.]
Sheeesh! That's a small plot....There's places that I won't ride armed with 10 friends...
Carajo!
"the Jackson County Sheriff's Department has seized 2,500 marijuana plants with a street value estimated at up to $12.5 million"
$5000 a plant? They must have been the size of live oaks.
I have a couple cousins up there who are probably weeping buckets at this news.
LMAO BUMP! :>)!!!!!!!!
Looks like the Mexican maggots have taken over Oregon's vaunted national park land. The enviro-nazis can keep the loggers out, so they can't make a living for their families, but they don't tangle with the drug cartels who are making much more money off the land and taking it out of public use to boot. Nice going, fools.
I feel safer now. Thanks, Drug Warriors. Let's get drunk and celebrate.
It's only a matter of time until ex-military types take the law into their own hands and start eliminating this trash, this FILTH, THIS DISEASE from our country. It CANNOT happen soon enough IMO.
Just polishing up on those agricultural skills Americans are too lazy to polish up on.
That's what he said - but minus the live oaks.
You owe me a new monitor. Mine has coffee all over it.
I was wondering if they found booby traps or not. Also, all they have to do is let those two guys go and we won't have to pay a single taxpayer dime to deal with them. I write that with total confidence -- and the Feds know it is true. Just let 'em go and they'll be dead within the year.
Never happen. The ex-military types up here use their skills to rob banks.
http://www.kirotv.com/news/9664884/detail.html
"The plants, each 4 to 6 feet tall,.."
I find it VERY unlikely those plants were capapble of producing anywhere near a pound of bud.
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