Posted on 07/17/2008 7:52:37 PM PDT by Alice in Wonderland
SILVER SPRINGS, FL - Capt. Lee Sullivan of the Multi-Agency Drug Enforcement Team has busted too many grow houses to count. But he had never seen one like the team shut down Tuesday afternoon.
Acting on an anonymous tip, the agency uncovered an underground grow house at 13595 N.E. First Street Road. Michael Klopp, 61, had allegedly buried a container that would typically go on the back of a semi-truck behind his home. He placed an identical container above it to serve as a shed.
"He buried it with a backhoe and dug a tunnel down to it," Sullivan said Wednesday. "He had a one-ton scale and some hay that covers the hatch up."
Agency officials found 90 marijuana plants in various stages of hydroponic growth inside the container, but not before they found the entry way in a shed behind Klopp's home.
"The agents were looking for indicators, and the scale and the hay stood out to them," Sullivan said. "It didn't make sense to have a one-ton scale with bales of hay on it.
"I'd never seen anything like this. This is a first."
Klopp was taken to the Marion County Jail and charged with cultivating marijuana and possessing marijuana with the intent of distributing it. He was released on $15,000 bond. The grow house found Tuesday is the 16th to be found this year in Marion County.
Ya so? One guy will go to jail for six months, the rewst will get fined or community service and the new grass crop will be all the better than last years.
Yessir, I am disgusted with the Court system.
Or, one of his buyers rolled over on him.
The biggest problem with being a successful criminal is that most of your business associates are criminals, too.
If I had a setup like he did - which I don't - I wouldn't tell anyone about it.
And if I sold the product - which I don't - I wouldn't tell anyone where it came from.
I glad too see someone has a little understanding
I've done 2 evictions in Marion County. I didn't know it at the time but the people were related to each other. They caused so much trouble for my family that I sold that property.
I wonder how he fed the plants carbon dioxide. Pump his furnace exhaust into the grow house?
But this is Florida, furnaces only get used for about six weeks in the dead of winter.
I don’t know much about it, either - but I do know plants inhale CO2, and exhalt O2 - so that underground bunker would become an oxygen-rich environment pretty darn quick, unless he had a vent system.
You would get high on oxygen just going down there.
Like they said it was pretty elaborate setup, state of the art
Ed Rosenthal would have given it 5 stars!
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